Project Mindshadow
by Kimagure Productions
Summary: A young girl's normal life turns upside down when she finds out that she has unusual psychic abilities and her entire life is a government conspiracy to use those powers for a hidden agenda of world domination.
1. Awakenings

Dr. Hans Gruber watched as the scientists administered the treatments to the test subjects. The results looked promising; half the test subjects were showing signs of mental activity, which denoted potential for telepathic activity. The other half... well, it was best not to think about them. Medical advances always involved... setbacks. Unfortunately, because the goal was to create and boost mental powers, the ability to use test animals was limited. Therefore, one had to be flexible with the definition of "test animals". 

The facility was officially named Base Michael-Sierra One. It had been nicknamed "The Farm" by the workers, in reference to its remote location and rural surroundings. Officially, Project Mindshadow fell under the same auspices of Project Sapphire and Project Darkmist, all of which were under the umbrella of the Meta Task Force headed by General Garner, with the stated goal of furthering human development. Quietly, it was understood that the real goal was to provide the government a means of regaining control of the increasing number of metahumans in the world. In this narrow field, Gruber was one of the best. His work was shunned because it drew its roots from the WWII Nazi mind control experiments and his questionable medical ethics. His expertise with mental development was nonetheless unquestioned. 

"We have initial results from the third pass of medications, Dr. Gruber," one of the scientists reported as he handed Gruber a clipboard. Gruber looked it over and grimaced; only a 120 percent gain in previous mental activity. Unfortunately, it appeared to him that they were hitting the curve of diminishing returns using psychotropic drugs alone. 

"Tell the team to begin electro-shock treatments." 

The scientist nodded without missing a beat. On paper, the electro-shock treatments had the potential of supercharging the mental development of the necessary energy to generate mental powers. The risks of frying people's minds however were considerable. Gruber made a mental reminder to request more test subjects; he suspected he would be needing replacements soon. 

---

Andrew McGee made his way to the lunch table carrying his usual tray of food. The food service here was adequate but bland. He really didn't have much choice on food selection and right now, he would pay real money for a decent bowl of chocolate pudding. With all the drugs these government guys were feeding them, he would have thought they could afford a couple of boxes of Jello. 

"Andrew, over here." 

McGee looked surprised to hear his name being called and walked over to the young woman who called him. She was a pretty red-head with a tray of the same food he was holding. The color-coded tag on her shirt marked her as one of the test subjects. 

"How'd you know my name?" McGee asked with a surprised look. 

"I read your mind," she whispered back conspiratorially, before smirking. "Nah, I asked the lunch counter guy." 

McGee took the invitation and sat down. He looked at her lunch tray and noticed her smaller portions. "Having trouble keeping food down?" 

She nodded. "Sometimes. The doctors say I should still try to eat though. Also, I get these headaches when they do their tests on us." 

McGee nodded. He was in a different group of people, on a different set of medications. The tests they were subjected to sometimes made his nose bleed when he was told to concentrate on items placed in front of him and move them with his mind. 

The woman smiled and offered her hand. "I'm Vickie." She glanced back at the watching security staff, then added drolly, "or as they call me, 'Subject F12'." 

"Subject M21," McGee replied at the little joke and took her hand. "But you can call me Andy." 

---

Angelina blinked as she shook and rubbed her head. The voices and visions were beginning to start up again, along with the headaches they inevitably brought. In front of the classroom, a bored teacher droned a cursory reading of American History. It was time for another pill. 

The classroom bell mercifully rang a short time later, dismissing the class. Angelina headed straight for the nearest water fountain and washed down a pill. She closed her eyes and sighed. The voices and images in her head began to fade, to be replaced by the all-too-familiar hazy fog that clouded her mind. It was a condition she had been dealing with for her entire young life. 

In the school cafeteria, Angelina sat alone with her thought, almost oblivious to the throng of students around her. Were it not for the drug-induced haze, she would have probably broken down with despair. At 14, she was by most standards, stunningly beautiful and should have been living the best times of her young life. She should have been dating boys, gossiping with girls, shopping, going to movies and enjoying all that life had to offer. Instead, she was crippled by a chronic condition that all but prevented those experiences. Half the time, she was constantly hearing imaginary voices and images in her head; it was like everyone around her was shouting their every idle thought at the top of their lungs. The other half, when she took her pills her mind was so deadened, she could barely feel anything. 

"Hey Angie." 

Angelina turned around as her friend Madelyn sat down next to her. "Hey Maddie," she replied drowsily. 

Madelyn sighed knowingly. "Did you just take one?" 

Angelina nodded briefly. "Up to four a day." 

Madelyn shook her head. "So what did you see this time? The stuff in your head, I mean?" 

Angelina shrugged. "Just more random junk, imagining what the kids in school are saying to one another. The trouble is, it's getting hard to tune out and I have to keep reminding myself that's not what they're actually saying and it's just my imagination. I also saw something weird; some scene with people being experimented on by some government conspiracy. Almost like some scene from a Stephen King movie." She shook her head dismissively. "It's nothing, I'm rambling. That's what happens when your head's full of non-stop free association or whatever my shrink calls it." 

Madelyn looked around then whispered, "You should write some of that stuff down. Maybe it means something." 

Angelina snorted. "Are you kidding? My shrink said the same thing and when he looked at what I wrote, they doubled my dosage." 

Madelyn shrugged. "So how did your date with Peter go last night?" 

Angelina looked down. "Same old. He picked me up, we drive, he puts his arm around me then his car ups and dies. We spent the rest of the night at Firestone with the techs telling him there's nothing wrong with his car and they can't figure it out." 

"Man, and just when things were getting good..." 

"Also, I swear I thought I saw him undressing me in his mind." 

"That part was probably true," Madelyn deadpanned. 

"But the worst part? My parents come to pick me up, and are they worried? No, the first words out of their mouths are asking whether I've taken my pills or not. I mean, never mind we were stranded or whether we were alright or not." 

"Listen, a bunch of us are going to head downtown to 6th street tonight. Want to come with?" 

"Well, I don't know..." 

Just then, one of the school administrators walked up and tapped Angelina on the shoulder. "Would you please come with us?" 

"Why?" Madelyn asked. "What'd she do?" 

"This isn't your concern Ms. Packard," the administrator coldly replied. 

Angelina waved Madelyn off as she picked herself up and went with the man. With her mind as foggy as it was, she couldn't muster the will to put up any resistance. Led into the principal's office, she was escorted to one of the offices and left alone. A few minutes later, a familiar man appeared. 

"Not you again," Angelina sighed. 

"Now Ms. Clancy, you know this is for your own good," the serious-looking man replied. "We wouldn't be doing our jobs if we didn't provide advice for our students." 

"I'm not interested in a career in the military. What makes you think I'll change my mind just because you keep pestering me?" 

The man sighed. "We're not here to pester. It's just that with your aptitude tests..." 

"What about them?" Angelina interrupted. "I think I was stoned out of my head when I took those." Which wasn't far from the truth, she remembered, having taken one of her pills shortly before. 

"I'm sure you're exaggerating," the man soothed. "The results we have confirm that you'd be a tremendous asset to..." 

"To what? How am I an asset? I've never fired a gun in my life. What makes you think I'm any use to the Army?" she replied tiredly. She had seen the man no less than four times in the last few months, and he always had the same message. Not only was she not interested, but something about the man creeped her out. The visions and whispers in her mind always seemed to get louder whenever he made his offer; strange paranoid visions about being turned into some kind of freak or weapon. She had tried dismissing them along with the others as an overactive imagination or symptom of her chronic headaches, but the feelings of dread never left. 

"There's more to the military than just being a soldier," the man promised. "They're in a position to provide you and your family a free education, some very good benefits and a great career." 

She shook her head again. How many times did she have to turn this guy down? "I'm a little young to be stressing about a career." 

The man sighed again. "I can see we need time to think things over. Your next class starts soon. I'm sure we'll talk again." 

"I can hardly wait," Angelina sarcastically replied as she stood up and left the office. 

After the door closed, the man waited a few seconds, and then picked up the phone. "She's still resisting. I think we need to get the domestic agents to apply some pressure on their front." 

---

Dr. Hans Gruber watched the grisly scene from behind the one-way mirror. The room had the benefit of being soundproofed. Not that Dr. Gruber worried about suffering in the name of science, but there was only so much caterwauling one could take. 

One of the assistants handed him a clipboard summarizing the latest results. Reading them over made Dr. Gruber shake his head with a mix of resignation and hope. So the electro-shock treatments were a little harsh after all. He had half-expected these results, but had hoped that his new collection of psychotropic drugs would allow the human mind to tolerate the shock treatments used to open up new neural pathways. 

"What is your latest update?" 

Dr. Gruber turned around and nodded at the man sitting in the shadows. He wanted to ask the man not to smoke in the labs, but this man had the seniority to dictate otherwise. "We've lost about 30 of our test subjects. Of the remaining subjects, most of them are exhibiting signs of advanced psychosis Mr. Raintree." 

John Raintree nodded gravely and looked back into the room of screaming patients. "How many subjects are still psychologically viable?" 

"We have six: Subjects F12, F4, F35, M9, M21, and M43. They each are showing signs of significant psychic potential." 

Raintree flipped through the details and raised his eyebrows. "Some of this is quite impressive. It is distressing to have such a high rate of negative side effects. I understand there's also a child involved?" 

"Yes sir, follow me." 

Raintree and Gruber walked into a series of corridors to a separate set of rooms. The staff here included a large number of medical personnel. A prenatal medical unit had been set up with an infant being examined by a series of sensors. 

"Apparently subjects M21 and F12 decided to participate in some...extracurricular activities." Gruber shook his head. "Young people these days..." 

Raintree paused as he read the last set of pages. "Are these readings from the child accurate?" 

"We believe them to be sir." 

Raintree looked into the prenatal facility with a glimmer of hope and grave concern. "Start a program to track her development. Perhaps there is an opportunity here to take the Project to another level." 

---

Andrew McGee trembled as he sat in the testing room. His hands were manacled to the chair to ensure no chance at corrupting the tests, but the worst part was his head. The days and nights had become a blur of pain and suffering. The doctors had assured him over and over that his body would adapt to the changes in time, but that didn't help his situation nor quiet his fears. The lunchroom, once full of test subjects, was now down to only a small handful. Men and women he once had pleasant conversations with were now reduced to babbling loonies, some of who had to be physically restrained. 

"Please concentrate on the test objects." the voice ordered from the speaker. 

McGee nodded tiredly and looked at the table in front of him. Arranged in a neat order was a set of iron weight plates and dumbbells. They were laid out order of increasing weight. He stared at the weights and his brow furrows. Despite the discomfort and stress, there was still a small part of him that found this exercise fascinating. 

Behind the glass of the observation room, the technicians watched with more clinical detachment. It wasn't that there wasn't an air of excitement at what they were seeing; it just didn't pay to get emotionally attached to any of the test subjects. 

"Psychokinetic force, ten pounds and climbing..." 

"Subject's blood pressure up to 140 over 85. Pulse up to 85 bpm. Respiration within normal parameters." 

A bead of sweat trickled down McGee's forehead as he felt his nose began to bleed. It wasn't as much a physical effort as it was a strain on his mind. He began to pant, but his mind refused to budge. He shook his head. "I...think that's all I have..." The technicians watched for another ten minutes before calling the test. Amongst themselves, there were mixed opinions of their progress. McGee was escorted back to the main room where the subjects were monitored on hospital beds. He lay back down, trembling and fighting waves of nausea. He was also fighting the feeling of dread. Over the last few months, several test subjects had been taken away and were never seen again. What was once a crowded room of patients had dwindled to only half full, and several of those looked in pretty bad shape. He wondered when his time would come. 

_"You there?"_ he asked in his head. 

A sigh of exhaustion was his reply. _"Just barely I think."_

McGee did his best not to let his own feelings creep into his thoughts, but it was probably a futile effort. Vickie's tests involved picking and guessing patterned cards by reading them off the minds of the observers. In those tests, she scored nearly a 100 success rate, which meant hiding strong emotions was probably impossible. Besides, he thought he felt a similar dread in her thoughts as well; the subjects in her test group tended to suffer less physical problems like strokes and heart failures, but more than made up that score in psychoses and catatonia. 

_"How are they treating her?" _ he asked. His mental voice was tinged with worry; the doctors weren't too pleased when Vickie became pregnant and took the child away from them when their baby girl was born. It took all the begging they could muster just to let them name the baby. 

_"They're feeding her, but..." _ Vickie's voice trailed off with sadness. _"She's lonely. They won't even touch her except with those machines. Something about not wanting to contaminate her mental development with emotional bonding." _

McGee suppressed his anger at the cruelty of the remark. It was one thing when he first volunteered. He was single, with no job prospects, no future, and nothing to lose. The whole project had sounded like an exciting journey into science fiction, but had long ago descended into horror. He had watched decent people turned into crazy nuts. Now that he had found someone he wanted to spend his life with, and a baby to care for, it was time to make some changes. He had to find a way out. 

---

Angelina walked into the small one-story middle class home with a sigh and dropped her school books in her room. Her head was filling up again with strange visions of men and women suffering from a fictitious conspiracy, along with more mundane imaginations of her neighbors' lives. They always got stronger as the drugs wore off and lately; the drugs' effectiveness had been getting less and less. 

She took another pill and gave it a minute for the voices in her head to die back down. Her parents would be home soon, which wasn't something she looked forward to. When she was younger, she tried to get more involved with school and community activities, but her folks never seemed to care. The only time they did was when she once suggested that the pills were messing her up in little league softball, and they responded by yanking her off the team. 

She thought about all the times she met Maddie's parents at their house and when she met Peter's parents at the Firestone last night. How Maddie's folks made time to attend every band performance; how Peter's dad couldn't stop talking about his son's football games. Maddie would always complain that her parents were trying to run her life, while Peter looked downright embarrassed that his father would call him out publicly the way he did. She found herself longing for that kind of attention and care; even downright meddling would have been welcome to the cool aloof upbringing she had to put up with. 

"Angelina, are you there?" 

"Yeah mom," Angelina replied tiredly. She rolled her eyes as she could almost see her mom coming to her room holding that infernal device. 

"It's that time dear," Mary Clancy said as she held a blood monitor. Angelina apathetically touched her finger onto the pad as it pricked her. A few seconds later, the monitor beeped. 

"Hmm... your sugar levels are a little low. Did you take your medicine?" 

"Yeah mom, I just took one a few minutes ago." 

Mary stared at the numbers with a grave expression on her face. For a moment, Angelina thought she saw a flash of something else, but it quickly faded. 

Behind Mary, John Clancy came up and looked at the monitor as well. "Angelina, I'm afraid it looks like we're going to have to go to the doctors in the morning." 

"What?" Angelina asked with concern. "What's wrong now?" 

"It's nothing Angelina," John replied gruffly. "They just may need to adjust your dosage some." 

"Oh God..." Angelina moaned. Every time she heard that, it usually meant another increase in dosage. 

"I don't want to hear that kind of talk Angelina." John replied sharply. "We're doing these treatments for your own good." 

"Those pills turn my head into mush," Angelina complained. 

"They're for your own good," John insisted. 

"Is that all you care about?" Angelina demanded. "How drugged up I am? Whenever I'm on them, I can barely think. I can't study or concentrate on school or anything else." 

There was a pause as John and Mary looked at each other, and then turned back to Angelina. "You won't do much in school if you get really sick and end up in the hospital," John said. 

"We just want what's best for you dear," Mary persisted. 

"Yeah right," Angelina muttered with a sotto voce. 

"By the way Angelina," John continued, "we got a call from your school today." 

"If it's about my schoolwork, I told you I can't concentrate when I'm doped up." 

"Not that Angelina. The school councilor says you've not been very receptive to career guidance." 

Angelina blinked with surprised at the unexpected change in the subject. "You mean the Army guy? What about him?" 

"The school councilor says you're being rebellious about taking good advice. He presented us with his proposal and we both think it's a good idea." 

"Since when do you care about what I do besides taking these stupid pills?" 

"Calm down dear," Mary nervously said. 

Angelina tensed up with frustration as her head began to pound painfully. "Don't tell me to calm down! I don't want a career with the Army!" 

"Young lady, that's enough!" John retorted harshly. "We're taking you to the doctors in the morning, and then we're going to meet with this councilor to discuss your future!" 

"It's my life!" Angelina shouted back. 

Just then, the windows in the room shattered as the lights in the house flickered on and off. John and Mary both cringed as Angelina froze and stared at the chaos. 

"Wha...?" Angelina whispered. 

"Some kids out front," Mary said with uncertainty and looked to John. 

"Right, that's what it is," John confirmed with mixed emotions. "I'll take care of this. But you young lady are grounded!" 

"For what?" Angelina protested. 

"You'll stay in your room until you show some respect!" John and Mary left the room, closing the door behind them. Angelina buried her head in her bed as the tears began to come. Her head still felt white-hot from a flash of pain that coincided with the vandals who broke the windows. They were going to blame her for that? She could tell; something about their expressions told her that her parents thought she was responsible for that too. 

The pain and the momentary clarity it brought had faded and the cotton filled her head once again. The day's events added to the disorientation; she just didn't know what to do. More and more the last few years, her life felt like it was out of her control. It was like she was on a collision course with some kind of destiny and not one that she wanted any part of. She got up and looked outside the shattered window. Her parents were nowhere to be seen and she didn't hear anything in the house. She briefly wondered where they went, but realized that she really didn't care. The less she saw of them right now, the better. Right now, she needed to get out. She needed to try and find herself and what she wanted to do with her life. She turned the lights in her room off, and then slid the window open as quietly as she could. Maddie lived just a few blocks away and right now she needed a friendly voice. 

---

Andrew McGee counted his change as he picked his groceries up from the cart. The cashier smiled at him and he returned the greeting. The people in the small town were friendly and had welcomed them since the couple had arrived only a few months ago. Such was the life for a couple on the run. 

"Got everything you need Andy?" 

"Yeah Bill, I'm good." 

Bill Harvey pulled his pickup truck onto the street with Andy's groceries in the back. As they drove, Andrew kept an eye on the rear vie mirror. As a matter of habit, he checked for anyone following him. It had been nearly two and a half years since Victoria and Andrew's escape from the Project. They had made their break during an exercise outing that Victoria had managed to "push" into the minds of their supervisors, followed by Andrew using his gifts to disable and unlock the security gates and steal a Project van. 

Over the next several months, Victoria and Andrew had to stay on the move almost constantly as Project agents dogged their trail. In the last few months, they had settled in this rural town in Montana near the Canadian border where Andrew managed to find a job working for Bill Harvey as a stocker at the town's supply store. They were renting a small cabin in a secluded part close to the woods. Pursuit had slowed somewhat as both hoped that being far off the populated areas would buy them some time. Neither one was naive enough to believe that the Project would ever actually give up on them. 

"You OK, Andy? You seem kind of nervous." 

"Yeah...sure...just thinking about dinner, that's all. What about you Bill, how's life at home?" Andrew asked as he tried to steer the subject away from his unpleasant circumstances. 

Bill snorted. "I just wish dinner was my biggest worry." He sighed. "Barbara's been on my case about all sorts of things. I envy you and Vickie. What's your big secret anyway?" 

"Being really honest," Andy smiled. Especially when your wife reads minds, he reminded himself. 

The truck pulled up to the cabin and came to a stop. Andrew grabbed the groceries and nodded. "I think I can get these." 

"Are you sure? Looks like kind of a lot." 

"Nah, I'm good. I'm stronger than I look," Andrew assured him. 

"OK, see you tomorrow then?" 

"First thing in the morning." 

Inside the small cabin, Andrew put the groceries and headed to the bedroom where he heard Victoria with the baby. He watched from the doorway as she held the baby close. 

_"Hush little baby, don't say a word... mama's gonna buy you a mockingbird..."_ Victoria whispered in her mind. She could feel the baby's contentment as she gently rocked to sleep. It was difficult for others to get close to little Angelina. The few friends they had met in town said they had dizziness spells and headaches when they got too close to her, which often left Victoria and Andrew making lame excuses. Victoria though never had that problem; like mother like daughter, she thought. 

"How is she?" Andrew whispered. 

Victoria sighed with contentment and fatigue. "Seems like she's getting stronger every day. If she keeps growing at this pace, she's going to be quite a little trooper." The two of them quietly left the makeshift nursery as Victoria picked up a melted plate. "If we survive the experience." 

Andrew shook his head. "Maybe it'll be cheaper if we switch to paper plates." He looked at Victoria, and any lingering frustration faded. No matter what the obstacle, anything was better than being under the thumb of the Project. He put his arms around her shoulders. "We'll find a way. It'll all work out." 

---

The field commander lowered his binoculars and tapped his communicator. "They're both inside." 

"Wait until the truck is out of sight. Be better if we can avoid witnesses." 

"Roger that. Snipers in position..." 

---

Living on the run meant a lot of cheap instant meals, but that was a price both Andrew and Victoria were willing to pay. The small cook stove did an adequate job heading a few cans of-soup. Outside, a dim rumble of sound slowly rolled towards the cabin. 

Andrew's preparations were interrupted as he looked outside. "What's that? Thunder?" 

Victoria's eyes widened as she shook her head. "They're here!" 

Andrew dropped the pots and bolted to the nursery as Victoria followed right behind him. It wasn't the first time they had to make a quick escape and each time meant starting over in another town. 

Outside the cabin, four large black suburbans closed in and surrounded the cabin. Teams of soldiers scrambled out and assumed cover positions on the windows and doors as they advanced on the house. The first pair converged on the front door with a battering ram. The door gave way with a crunch. 

"Secure the house!" the commander ordered. Inside soldiers stormed into the living room, checking the closets and other potential hiding places. Downstairs in the basement, Andrew and Victoria made their way to the outdoor cellar entrance and peeked out. 

"There's two of them up there," Victoria whispered as she held her hands to her temples. "The rest have the door and garage blocked." 

Andrew took Angelina from Victoria so she could concentrate. "Come to daddy sweetheart." He then looked at Victoria. "If we could get to one of their vans, maybe we could get clear. It worked last time." 

"The strain almost killed you last time," Victoria protested. 

"It's that or go back to the Project," Andrew replied. "Don't worry about me. I'll get the car and handle the soldiers." He handed Angelina back to Victoria. "You just take care of Angelina." 

Andrew opened the cellar door, and almost immediately got the attention of the soldiers by the door. As they turned and aimed their guns, Andrew exhaled and concentrated as hard as he could. The two soldiers flew backwards and their rifles snapped into pieces. He then turned his attention to the door to the nearest suburban and opened the doors from the inside. 

Victoria came out as soon as the doors were opened, taking Angelina in her arms. Behind her, three more soldiers came running around from inside the house and aimed their rifles at her as she placed Angelina into the stolen suburban. 

"Stop!" Victoria shouted as the three men froze. "You... you don't want to do this...!" She panted as she gripped her forehead. "You want to put the guns down and walk awa...!" 

Just then, another shot rang out loud. Andrew froze in shock and horror as Victoria's head snapped back from the impact. "No...!" he shouted as Victoria's body slumped in his arms. The three gunmen resumed their approach with their guns drawn, and then abruptly flew backwards. A wave of force rippled forward, shattering the suburban windows. Tears of grief ran down Andrew's face as he charged forward. He had to push them back and get Angelina out of here. 

"He's coming around the front of the SUV now. Target locked," a voice reported. 

"Take him out!" the lead solder ordered. 

The burst of another rifle erupted and hit Andrew center-mass. "Tangos down!" the muffled voice coldly reported as the first soldier gave a hand-signal to his partner to surround the McGees. 

"I have the package," the soldier reported as he roughly grabbed the baby from the suburban. She began to whimper, and then cry. The soldier froze and clutched his head in pain. Outside, the other soldiers winced and writhed in agony. The baby cried harder; outside, the soldiers in the area began to bleed from their noses and ears. Despite their briefing and shielding, the pain was like nothing they ever felt. 

"G-gas'em all...!" the leader managed to sputter into his mike as his mouth began to froth with blood. Above the cabin in the sky, a helicopter came over the horizon and fired rockets into the compound. The warheads detonated above the cabin with loud pop, drowning the area with a thick greenish fog. The air fell silent as the soldiers in the area passed out from the anesthesia gas. A few minutes later, the helicopter flew past the area again, blowing the air clear of gas, then landed near the suburbans. Three more soldiers climbed out and surveyed the area, then carefully approached the now-unconscious baby. The lead soldier nodded, and then the second one pressed his communicator. "Package is secure. We'll need a pickup for our men." 

---

Gruber nodded gravely as he listened to the phone. "I see. Well, good work. Make sure there's nothing there to identify." He hung up and turned towards Raintree. "You were right. They didn't go easily." 

Raintree lit a cigarette and smiled thinly. "Frankly, I would have been disappointed if they did. Their tests confirm that they were two of the more promising candidates. Fortunately, having a pair of snipers in position enabled us to present a threat they couldn't detect and counter until it was too late. A pity really; but necessary." Raintree paused as he noted Gruber's reticence. "You disagree?" 

"I know I'm not on the operations side of things. But I still think M21 and F12 could have been better utilized by the Project. The fact that they were able to escape and stay ahead of pursuit as long as they did proves they were one of the few who were able to adapt to the program." 

"The strike team has instructions to bring them back to the Project. Your team will have all the opportunity it needs to examine them. But we had to retrieve the package." 

Gruber walked to the computer monitor and typed some keys. "If the readings the strike team are reporting are accurate, then F67 could be the answer to all our problems. But that won't help if she won't work for us." 

"And that is precisely why measures had to be taken to ensure that her upbringing was under our control. Think about it; Andrew and Victoria McGee had already decided to leave the Project. What do you think the likelihood was going to be that they would allow Angelina to be drafted into our services? Even if they could have been...persuaded, the fact was clear that they were ill-equipped to handle the strain of raising their little girl." 

"According to your own intelligence sources, the McGees appeared to be a functional family unit. Why would they lose control after being able to hold her in check for the last few years?" 

"Simple. Ask yourself this question: How exhausting must it have been for Victoria and Andrew McGee while this child was an infant? The bottle is late, the baby cries, and at that moment, the windows in the bedroom start shattering." 

"You're making it sound like she's some kind of monster." 

"That's because she is a monster. And she'll be a far more dangerous one if we don't take control. Suppose telekinetics are only the tip of the iceberg?" 

"I'm afraid I don't follow you." 

"You once told me the psionic talents of the more successful candidates were directly linked to their pituitary gland; in this case, the child's undeveloped pituitary gland. What happens when she becomes an adolescent and that sleeping gland wakes and becomes, for 20 months, the most powerful force in the human body? Suppose we have a child here who, someday, is capable of destroying entire cities simply by the power of her will?" 

"Hmm...I see where you're going with this. And that's assuming she's only inherited her father's abilities. What if she's also carrying her mother's gifts as well?" 

Raintree nodded. "That is a concern. If she has Victoria's telepathic abilities as well, then we'll have to ensure she can't use them until she's agreed to sign onto the Project. If we don't, then our agents won't stand a chance to indoctrinate her. Can you develop a suppressant to keep her in check?" 

Gruber thought it over. "Probably. She would have to take the drugs every day and we would have to monitor her blood chemistry to keep the psychotropics at the proper levels. The agents you assign to be her foster parents are going to have to be able to sell her on staying on the drugs no matter what. Their lives and the future of the Project could very well depend on it." 

---

The suburban pulled onto the street with the sounds of hip-hop echoing from the windows. Inside the crowded interior, Angelina looked at Madelyn and Pamela with a twinge of envy at their stylish clothes. Despite Madelyn's assurances and borrowed jacket, she felt horribly under-dressed for a night on the town. Although Angelina tried her best not to be petty about such things, the fact that her parents only bought the bare minimum necessities for her was always a sticking point in the back of her mind. That kind of cheapness always made her look so shabby next to all the other girls in school in their designer clothes. 

Up front, Peter, along with his friends Ralph and Michael talked about football, hunting, and superheroes, while Madelyn and Pamela did their best to disguise their disinterest. _Boys_ their expressions both said. 

"So Angie, your parents are kind of a drag, huh?" Peter asked as he drove the suburban. 

Angelina shook her head and rubbed her forehead. She was having a hard time concentrating through the fog. "Um... yeah. Tonight was pretty bad. I just... just needed to get out of that house." 

"I know that," Ralph agreed. "Like my folks. I mean, normally, they're pretty cool, but my mom's always nagging me about my schoolwork, telling me how she had to work so hard to get to go to college and all." 

"Like you're gonna go to college," Pamela snorted. 

"Hey, I'm getting in," Ralph protested. "Just you wait; I've already had three college coaches offering scholarships." 

"So what about you Peter?" Madelyn asked. "Are you going to play football in college?" 

"Eh...I'm not sure," Peter hedged. "My mom doesn't want me to, but dad's pushing me to get a college scholarship. Personally, I think he's just living his life through mine." 

"At least your dad likes you," Michael grumped. "I can't ever be good enough for mine." 

"What are you talking about Mike?" Madelyn said. "You're a straight-A student. You're on the academic decathlon team." 

"An A-minus student, my dad would say," Michael corrected. "He's pushing me to get into some big Ivy-League school out of town." 

"I wouldn't mind getting out of this town," Pamela said. "But those Ivy-League kids are all rich snobs." 

"That's what I said," Michael agreed. "But my folks are all, like, you gotta think about your future, son." 

"I don't want to think about the future," Madelyn said. "Mr. Geiger keeps telling me I have talent though." 

"I swear, you're such a band geek Maddy," Pamela said. 

"Am not!" 

"Are too!" 

"Angie, help me out here," Madelyn pleaded. 

Angelina blinked at the distraction. "What? Um... " 

"Hello? Space case?" Pamela asked. 

Angelina shook her head. "Sorry. I was just thinking...about how nice it'd be to have someone who actually gave a damn about what I'm doing with my life." 

"I'm sure your folks care," Madelyn assured. "They're just a little...weird about it." 

"Yeah right," Angelina snorted. "The only person who gives a damn about my future is some jerk in the principal's office who keeps pushing me to join the Army." 

"No shit?" Peter asked. "For real?" 

"Yeah, for real," Angelina nodded. "I mean, I've been called to his office like four times and it's always the same crap." 

"Billy Tolliver joined last year, right out of school," Peter said. "He was a senior last year, so he was before your time, but he says it's not so bad. Kind of weird they're pushing a freshman in though. Isn't it illegal to join before 17?" 

"What would you do in the Army anyway?" Pamela asked derisively. 

"Who knows?" Angelina waved off. "Probably just sit at some desk or something. Guess even the Army needs someone making coffee and Xerox copies." 

---

"What do you mean 'gone'? How the hell do you lose track of someone in your own house?" the angry voice on the phone demanded. 

"It's not our fault!" John retorted back. "She had a brief psi-surge and we had to pull back before any information was compromised. And where the hell are those surveillance agents anyway? They're supposed to have a perimeter around her at all times, even at the house!" 

Gruber sighed on the other end of the telephone. Now wasn't the time to lose his temper. "We had to pull them back as well. According to the psychiatrist, F67 reported seeing visions of experiments that matched the original Project fifteen years ago." 

"Jesus..." John breathed. "From how far away?" 

"They've had to pull back almost 200 yards. Any closer and she's getting too many clues that'll start to fit together." 

"Isn't the drug supposed to prevent that?" 

Gruber winced and closed his eyes at the stinging remark. He knew this day was coming, but he didn't realize it'd be so soon. According to Angelina's last four medical exams, the psychotropic suppression drugs were having less and less effect. Her powers, which were growing at a phenomenal rate, were beginning to fight back. Which meant timing was critical; the longer she stayed outside observation, the greater the chance she'd miss her medication. If that happened too long, then keeping her ignorant to the truth would soon be impossible. 

"Just stay where you are. Maybe she'll show up at home. If she does, then... I don't know... ground her or something. Keep her there until we can get a new set of drugs into her that'll keep her down." 

Gruber then hung up the phone and turned to Raintree. "Well, your so-called intelligence agents just let a fourteen-year-old girl climb out a window and right through the dragnet in the neighborhood." 

Raintree nodded in acknowledgement. "Unfortunately, maintaining a line-of-sight surveillance on someone who's showing broad-spectrum psionic ability is nearly impossible without giving away your position." His voice turned almost musing. "It's enough to make me proud of what she's going to accomplish once she's actually trained." 

Gruber arched his eyebrow dubiously. "Aren't we getting a little ahead of ourselves? The school councilors we've arranged to talk to her reported she's not interested. If anything, they're pushing her away, and her so-called parents aren't really doing any better." 

"No...no, you're right. It's time to bring her in. I'll have the Clancy's get her out of that public school and enroll her in a special 'prep-school'. I need you to buy us another few weeks or so with a new compound of drugs. With the right...addictive properties, I'm sure she can be persuaded to join any organization that keeps her supplied with... what she needs," Raintree concluded with a sinister smile. 

---

The bouncer looked at the ID card dubiously then handed it back to Peter. "Sorry kid; can't let you in." 

"Hey come on, it's just a couple of years difference," Peter protested. 

"I don't care," the bouncer replied and crossed his arms in an intimidating manner. "And even if that's so, your friends have a few more years to go." 

In the back, Angelina began to furrow her brow. The closer they had come to the club, the louder the voices in her head were becoming. Now that they were in the foyer, she could almost feel the sweaty, bumping and grinding on the dance floor among the hundreds of people inside. She began to shiver as she felt like she was drowning in a storm of emotions and images. 

"You OK Angie?" Madelyn asked. 

"I'm..." Angelina struggled to speak as she shook her head. "...think I'm going to faint..." 

"Is there a problem here?" the club maitre 'd asked as he walked up. 

"No problem Mr. Robinson," the bouncer assured. "I was just going tell these kids we don't allow under aged." 

"Can we at least get a glass of water?" Madelyn asked. "My friend's not feeling well and she needs to take her medication." 

"Ahh... well, then it sucks to be you," the bouncer coldly replied. 

Angelina cringed with pain. The voices, colors and flashes in her head were becoming unbearable. She could feel the arrogance of the bouncer, the smug confidence of the maitre 'd. She felt the concern from her friends, the whispers of hundreds of people all around her, wondering what was going on. She needed to get her medicine and quickly before she went mad. "I... need..." 

The bouncer looked at Angelina with a condescending smirk, and then stopped. Something about her voice, her eyes seemed to grip his mind. Without realizing what was happening, he felt his will drain completely away. 

"I...need you...to let us in," Angelina whispered. 

The bouncer nodded. "Yes, of course," he replied meekly. 

Angelina straightened up. For some reason, her head had cleared completely. Something inside her made her feel euphoric and giddy. "You're...going to waive the cover," she said softly to the maitre 'd. 

"Certainly," the maitre 'd said obediently as he nodded. "Please follow me. We can seat you right away." 

Angelina blinked as the maitre 'd grabbed six menus and ordered the wait staff to prepare a table. The moment of clarity had vanished, to be replaced by the familiar flashes and voices in her head. 

Peter, Madelyn and the others stared at her with stunned silence. "H-how'd you do that?" Madelyn asked with awe. 

"I... I don't know. I didn't do anything," Angelina said. 

The group made their way to a medium-sized table. All around them, the throbbing sounds of music thundered throughout the club. The floor was filled with dancers of various sizes and skill. Tables were arranged throughout the room with drinks and food being served. When the group sat down, a waitress came to their table. 

"What do you kids want?" the waitress asked. 

"A round of beers and a pitcher of margarita?" Ralph asked. 

"Um... I'm going to need to see some ID," the waitress said sternly. _Like you kids are legal aged... I'm not losing my job over this..._

Angelina shook her head to try and clear it. She could almost hear the waitress' thoughts and doubts in her head, along with an imagined scene where the management was reminding the wait staff to check IDs on drinks. "You won't lose your job over this," she said softly. "Please bring us some drinks." 

The waitress seemed to shiver slightly, and then blinked. "Drinks coming up." 

"Wow...you go Angie," Michael said. "So when did you learn the Jedi mind trick?" 

"You are such a nerd Mike," Pamela said. 

"Hey, I'm just saying..." 

Angelina shook her head. "It's not me; she's probably just ... busy or something." 

"You're going to be OK?" Madelyn asked. "This music can't be doing your head any good." 

"It comes and goes. My head seemed to clear just now. I don't know why." 

"Well, I hope you feel better," Peter offered. "Maybe you'll do better after having a drink?" 

Angelina nodded. "Maybe a lemonade. Or a big chocolate shake or something..." 

"Angie, what about your diabetes?" Madelyn asked discreetly. "Aren't you supposed to be watching your sugars or something like that?" 

"You know, it's weird... now that I think of it, my folks never talk about that. I mean, they go nuts making sure I never miss my medicine, but they don't care about soda or ice-cream." 

"That is weird," Michael added. "I have an uncle who has diabetes and he can't touch a cookie to save his life." 

"Thank God for small favors I guess," Pamela said as the waitress returned with a tray of beverages. 

"Well, here's to the future, and the parents who meddle in them," Peter offered as a toast. 

---

The gang of delinquents watched the crowd of dancing fools with the eyes of predators. They had been given strict instructions to bring their prey in without harming them, which chaffed them badly. What was the fun in hunting if they couldn't rough them up some? But for the $2000 they were being offered, they were willing to make sacrifices. They could always buy their entertainment later for that kind of scratch. 

"There," one of the gang members said as he watched a girl taking a pill with her margarita. He grinned with satisfaction as he nudged his comrades for attention. 

The gang leader glanced at her and whistled. What a babe... too bad she was wearing such cheap prudish clothes. Put a tight leather mini-skirt, a tube-top and some stiletto heels on her and she'd own the dance floor for sure. That is, if they didn't get to her first. 

"She's a druggie," the first gang member nodded. "I watched her taking a pop just a second ago." 

"I dunno man..." the second ganger offered. "Seems like a waste to give this gorgeous hottie to Mr. T. Maybe we should keep her for ourselves and get him a fatty instead." 

The gang's leader mulled the notion before shaking it off. "Nah, if we did that, we'd be, like, having too much fun to get anything done. And we really need the money." 

"She's getting up," the first guy reported. "Heading to the lady's room it looks like." 

"Let's go guys," the leader ordered. One of the gang members had a rag soaked in a harsh chemical, whose strong smell was lost in the smoky air of the dance floor. One thing was for sure though; the leader told himself. He'd ask Mr. T for extra for this one. 

---

Angelina drifted towards the rest room with the crowds of people, the smoky air and the pounding music all mixed into a thick heavy haze that blanketed her mind. She didn't understand what had happened earlier that evening. When she had ordered drinks from the waitress, the voices in her head seemed to momentarily ceased, and was replaced by a warm soothing euphoria. For a few minutes, she had never felt so good. It had been the same when she convinced the club bouncer and maitre 'd to let her friends in the club. 

Unfortunately, the bliss didn't last. The voices, flashes and images returned to her mind with a vengeance. It was like every single person in the club had decided to shout all their most intimate and detailed secrets for all to hear. Although she had come to despise the fog her pills brought her, she needed them now. 

Once she took one however, she began to feel more dizzy than normal, even to the point of nausea. She wondered if the alcohol from what was her first serious drink was to blame, but it really didn't matter. Right now, she needed to get to a sink before she lost her lunch. 

"You OK?" 

Angelina turned to the voice and tried to focus. Her vision was cloudy and her mind felt confused. It looked like a couple of guys were coming to her and leading her away. Were they taking her to the rest room? 

"Too much to drink?" 

Angelina tried shaking her head, but couldn't move. Her arms were being pinned; what was happening? Before she could offer another word in protest, she felt a rag clamp over her face, assaulting her nose with a harsh chemical smell. The last thing she heard was the giggling of boys before everything went black. 

---

Ethan Taylor watched with mixed motions as the men loaded and carried the young girl onto the waiting gurney. So this was what he had stooped to; associating with the lowest forms of human scum and kidnapping children. It wasn't like he had a choice; his cancer didn't leave him many options and his time was limited. He had to do this, he told himself. No one was going to get hurt. "You sure no one followed you guys?" 

"Told you Mr. T, we got it under control. She's a druggie. No one misses their kind." 

Ethan grimaced as he handed a wad of bills to the street punks. No doubt they'd use the money to buy drugs, but the less he knew the better for him. "Just make sure no one follows you." He paused, and then shook his head. "There may be...more work for you guys soon." 

"No problem Mr. T." 

Ethan sighed with exasperation. "I told you guys never to call me that. Do I have a Mohawk on my head or what?" 

"What Mohawk?" 

Ethan blinked with disbelief before shrugging it off. Christ, he was getting old. And young people these days don't read a lick of history. 

---

"Where'd Angie go, guys?" Madelyn said with concern. 

"I thought she said she was headed to the restroom?" Peter replied. 

"Yeah, but she's been gone a while." Madelyn looked at Ralph and Pamela, both who shook their heads and shrugged. "She gets these dizzy spells from time to time. I'm going to go check on her." 

Madelyn walked towards the rest room, threading her way past the crowded dance floor. Reaching the rest room, she checked the stalls one by one, knocking on the ones that were occupied and receiving replies that varied from polite to coarse. But no Angelina. Where the hell could she have gone? 

Madelyn then made her way outside the club. The bouncer nodded at her as she walked past. It still amazed her how Angelina got them into the club. Normally she was so hazy from her medicine; there were days she had a hard time stringing a coherent sentence together, but not tonight. The way she... commanded them to let them in; the bouncer had went from bully to groveling sycophant in almost a blink of the eye. 

She put that thought out of her mind as she looked out in the parking lot. Did Angelina have a reoccurrence of her illness? Maybe she was passed out in Peter's car. As she walked back to the suburban, she saw a pair of uniformed police officers approach her. 

"Excuse me, Madelyn Packard?" 

"How do you know my name?" Madelyn asked nervously. 

"We need to ask you a few questions." 

"Um... ah... I haven't been drinking..." 

_Sure you haven't,_ the cop's knowing expression replied without a word. "It's about your friend Angelina Clancy. Her parents are reporting her missing." 

Madelyn looked away for a moment. For some reason, the Clancys had always kept a ridiculously tight leash on Angelina all her life. It was one thing to care about her, but they were always downright paranoid, never failing to check on her almost every hour outside of school. Angelina needed her space, just like any other kid, and she didn't want to ruin that. But calling the cops though was a new one, even for the Clancys and she didn't know how to react. 

"Well...I don't know. I mean, she was with me earlier, but I don't know where she is now. She's probably around here somewhere." 

The police officer handed Madelyn a card. "If you see her, please let her know her folks are really worried about her and that she should return home immediately. If she needs a ride, have her call us at this number and someone will come get her as quickly as possible." The police officer pulled out a radio. "Subject was here. Start the pattern and expand from this location." 

Madelyn watched with some fascination as the police office got back into his patrol car and pulled out onto the streets. Behind him, she counted no less than five other patrol cars, along with two SWAT vans. _What the hell...?_ she thought. She would have thought a Kennedy was kidnapped or something. How the hell did the Clancys pull that kind of attention? 

---

Ethan Taylor tried his best to keep his attention on his test procedures, with his eyes occasionally being drawn almost irresistibly towards his bound and blindfolded test subject. He had done this several times to a variety of test subjects but never seen one this photogenic before. Most of his previous test subjects, sadly, were emaciated or suffering from a variety of drug-related health issues but not this one. He wondered where his hirelings managed to snag this looker, but quickly put it out of his mind. For one, it wasn't comfortable to dwell on them as human beings and two he had more important concerns. 

Ethan rubbed his forehead and winced a little as his thoughts drifted about his situation. His latest tests confirmed that his cancer was still growing. The Syn-blood in his veins had already earned him a considerable sum in the form of an advanced retainer. Although it was helping to buy him a little more time, he still needed to find a solution. His body wouldn't be able to take the strain of the synthetic blood for long. To that end, he needed to continue his plan to gather more genetic samples to correlate into his database. He preferred to get the samples from voluntary subjects, but sometimes he didn't have that choice. 

He sighed, as he made sure his test subject was prepped to collect her genetic samples. It was so frustrating. The very condition that opened up his mind to new concepts and astonishing discoveries would also be his death. He needed to focus; his genius was both the cause and solution to his condition. It was up to him to find a way out. 

"Initial setup complete," the computer replied in its tinny voice synthesizer. "Pulse 54 bpm, respiration normal, blood pressure 110/76, body temperature 98.6F..." 

Ethan glanced through his test subject's purse while his computer did the initial diagnosis. Angelina Clancy, high school freshman, lived in the suburbs of the city. He shook his head; what was she doing at a bar anyway? Dumb kids these days, always messing up their lives. But right now, he needed them to find a solution to his own problems. 

Angelina gave off a slight hmm as Ethan drew off a couple test tubes of blood. "Don't be afraid, Angelina. This isn't what it looks like. I'm not here to hurt you," Ethan said with as soothing a voice he could muster. "I just need to take some samples for a couple of tests." 

"What's going on?" she asked weakly. "Who's there?" 

"Trust me Angelina, the less you know about me, the better. But I promise nothing's going to happen to you. Once we're done here, I'll let you go." 

"Why are you doing this?" 

"It's a... genetics issue; kind of complicated. But I'll have you back home in a couple hours, so don't worry." 

"Ethan...?" she whispered. 

Ethan paused and turned around slowly. "What did you say?" 

"Your name is Ethan right? This has something to do with your cancer or something like that." 

Ethan froze before shaking it off. Maybe she overheard his hirelings talking about him. If so, he would have to remind them again to keep their mouths shut. 

He inserted the test tube into the computer and waited for the results. A beep from the computer got Ethan's attention. He looked at the screen and frowned. "What the hell...?" Midazolam? Lorazepam? Given his unsavory hirelings, he was expecting to see various amounts of cocaine, heroin or other street drugs in her system, but he had never heard of these. Were there some new street drugs out there that he didn't know about? He pulled up a separate computer and typed in a search in his medical database. 

"Midazolam," the computer replied. "Class 4 experimental psychotropic compound; chemical breakdown: 8-chloro-6-(2-fluorophenyl)-1-methyl-4H-Imidazo(1,5-a)(1,4)benzodiazepine. Used to suppress short-term burst theta-wave brain activity. Lorazepam; Class 4 experimental psychotropic compound, chemical breakdown: 9-chloro-6-(2-chlorophenyl)-4-hydroxy-2,5-diazabicyclo5.4.0undeca-5,8,10,12-tetraen-3-one. Used to suppress alpha-theta wave brain activity. Flurazepam; Class 5 experimental psychotropic compound; chemical breakdown: 9-chloro-2-(2-diethylaminoethyl)-6-(2-fluorophenyl)-2,5-diazabicyclo5.4.0undeca-5,8,10,12-tetraen-3-one. Used to suppress high-order psionic wave brain..." 

"Holy...shit..." Ethan whispered as the computer continued its litany of chemical breakdown. He looked at Angelina's purse again, this time searching much more intently. All her personal information looked plain as vanilla, but something was seriously wrong here. He found a set of pills labeled "Insulin", but it had to be a forgery. Looking at her blood work again, he confirmed that she was dosed with a whole range of powerful experimental compounds, most of which couldn't have been available anywhere outside of top-secret military labs. 

Ethan forced himself to calm down and tried to piece things together. Angelina looked and for the most part, acted like a healthy 14-year-old girl. Her home address wasn't that far from the city and wasn't near any publicly known government facility. Of course that didn't really mean anything; the government could set up shop at a 7-11 if it was inclined to do so. But why? She wore a Medic-alert bracelet for diabetes and carried around a set of pills labeled Insulin. But her blood sugar showed no signs of diabetes; instead, she was dosed with a combination of psychotropic drugs that looked more like something someone would use to suppress a high-order telepath or psychic. She knew his name, he suddenly realized. And his cancer condition. But if she could sense that even under this level of dosage, then unsuppressed, she would be... 

"Angelina, can I ask you a few things?" 

"What do you want?" Angelina asked warily. 

"This is going to sound silly but... do you have psychic powers?" 

That elicited a giggle. "Look, I don't know what this is about, but two things I do know. One, I don't date dumb jocks, and two, I don't have super powers." 

"Uh-huh. These pills in your purse; how many of these do you take a day?" 

She shrugged. "At my last physical, they told me to start taking four-a-day." 

Ethan quickly did the math in his head. That came up to nearly 2000mg a day; more than enough to kill a normal person. That meant there was something about Angelina that was rapidly burning the drugs out of her system. "Who is 'they'?" 

"Doctors...my parents...even some of my teachers, now that I think about it. Pretty much everyone I guess." 

"Everyone...?" Ethan reached for his phone and dialed a number as what he hoped was just paranoia gripped his heart. He was suddenly seized with an immediate need to find out where his hirelings found this girl and to have them double-check to make sure they weren't being followed. The phone rang twice before he hung up; no, better he cut himself off right away. He pondered his options for a moment before a flashing banner on the television caught his eye. 

"...and police are asking the public for any help they may have on the identity of the perpetrators. Once again, four men have been found dead from what apparently was a drug deal gone wrong. Eyewitnesses describe the scene as execution-styled with minimal signs of a struggle..." 

"Oh my God..." Ethan muttered as he saw the police pencil sketches of the victims. Earlier that evening, he had just paid them a couple thousand dollars. What was already growing concerns escalated quickly into all out fear. What the hell had he stumbled into? He fumbled for his coffee cup, but his trembling fingers failed to grab it. He quickly began shutting down his equipment. It was time to get the hell out of Dodge. 

"Wh-what are you doing?" Angelina asked as she felt Ethan fumbling with the manacles holding her to the observation table. 

"Angelina, who's after you?" Ethan asked with concern. 

"N-no one. I haven't done anything." 

Ethan gauged Angelina's reaction; she seemed sincere, albeit understandably nervous. Was she not in on the conspiracy? He finished unlocking the manacles. "Take off. You're free to go." 

"But... what about your samples?" 

"We don't have time! We've both got to get out of here!" 

---

The squad cars surrounded the warehouse to establish a perimeter while the vans disgorged a squad of soldiers. The squad leader scanned the area with the help of infrared goggles. 

"Two heat sources inside, some powered equipment, no sign of any weaponry," the squad leader reported. 

"We've got spikes on the windows. Squads in position," another soldier reported. In front of him, a bank of monitors came to life, showing pictures of the interior of the warehouse. "Alpha team has tasers and tranq guns ready for the package. Bravo team will handle crowd control." With good old-fashioned bullets, he didn't have to say. 

The squad leader took a moment to watch the video to get an assessment of the situation. Pretty simple setup, he thought. They had orders to bring F67 in with minimal damage possible, and by any means necessary. Anyone who might know the full scope of the Project was to be eliminated. He picked up the communicator. "Now hear this...full breach...full breach!" 

---

Ethan Taylor cursed as the main door to the warehouse burst open with a loud explosion, followed by the earsplitting detonation of flash-bang grenades. Above him, the skylight windows shattered and heavy ropes dropped to the floor. Nearly blind and deaf, he scrambled back to the console for cover. He felt a pair of bullets clip his shoulder painfully as he made it under the desk. He had to reach his escape hatch as quickly as possible or cancer would be the least of his problems. 

Angelina screamed in panic at the cacophony of soldiers, explosions, and guns filled the room. She was frozen in terror and completely ignorant on what to do next. 

"Package sighted, we have the shot!" 

"Take her down!" 

Angelina cringed as soldiers emerged from the billowing smoke and pointed rifles at her. Was this it; the end? She closed her eyes and threw up her arms. She was too scared to meet death with her eyes open. In her mind, she could almost feel the electrical-tingle of the taser darts and liquid-filled tranquilizer darts as they flew through the air towards her. 

Ethan watched the soldiers advance on Angelina from behind his console. He recognized the rifles as being tasers and tranquilizers. So they wanted her alive. The ones surrounding him however looked like they were armed with conventional rifles, which meant he wasn't so lucky. He looked back over towards Angelina and blinked. Were his eyes playing tricks on him? He thought he saw the projectiles deflect away from Angelina. At that range, the soldiers couldn't possibly have missed. 

"Angelina, get down!" Ethan shouted. Poor kid looked scared as hell. At the sound of her name, she managed to crawl over towards him. 

"Who are they?" Angelina asked with fear. 

"I don't know," Ethan replied. _But whoever they are, they want you pretty damned bad and are willing to kill anyone to get you back._

"Targets are together," the soldiers reported. 

"Alpha team, move in, Bravo, fall back and hold position," the leader ordered. 

"We have the targets," the lead soldiers reported and took aim. 

"Stop!" Angelina shouted as the squad of men froze. "You... you don't want to do this...!" She panted as she gripped her forehead. "You want to put the guns down and walk away...!" 

Ethan watched in eerie morbid fascination. The men lowered their rifles and froze like statues on Angelina's command. He also realized that the air was filled with hails of bullets, taser and tranquilizer darts that had slowed to a stop, still spinning from the rifling. That the bullets would have certainly ended his life made his continue breathing all that more remarkable. He turned and saw Angelina's trembling face as unfamiliar concentration was etched on her face. So his assessment was right after all. 

"Shit...!" the squad leader muttered as he watched the battle plans falling apart. "Gas the whole area!" 

A group of gas grenades flew into the room and exploded into large plumes of noxious vapors. The paralyzed soldiers in the first wave collapsed from the gas as the outer group of soldiers donned their gas masks. For a moment, the inside of the warehouse was obscured by clouds before the gas began to thin out into the night air. 

Ethan grabbed Angelina by the arm and led her away past the paralyzed soldiers. If they could reach the panel on the floor, they could both get to the city sewer system and get away. Around them, he saw the gas seem to drift away from them with purpose. Was Angelina doing this all by herself, he wondered? If she could do all this while under a heavy dose of psychotropics, then that would go a long way why someone would come after her like this. 

"Y-you're hurt," Angelina said as she saw Ethan's shoulder throbbing with blood. Instinctively, she reached for the open wound. 

"Don't...touch..." Ethan gasped as he grabbed Angelina's wrist. "My blood's...volatile once it leaves my body. It's not safe to touch." 

Angelina nodded and trembled. She looked at the wound and concentrated again. Ethan cringed with pain as he felt the bullets slowly moving inside his body. A second later, the first bullet extracted itself from his flesh, and then followed by the second one. 

Ethan's muscles visibly relaxed as the bullets were removed. He looked at Angelina and shook his head. "Next thing you know... you'll be dating dumb jocks..." 

---

The squad leader and the remaining soldiers scouted the area and shook their heads. What had started as a well-planned assault has disintegrated into chaos. Half their men were still paralyzed and had to be carried back to the van, with no way of knowing how long their trance would last. Worst of all, they lost control of the package. The Project senior personnel wouldn't be happy to hear that. Time was no longer their ally; they had to require the package and regain control as soon as possible. The consequences for failure could very well spell the end of the world as they knew it. 

---

"That pipe goes straight to the water reservoir," Ethan pointed to one of the large passageways. 

"Are you going to be OK?" Angelina asked. 

"I'll be fine," he said, not sure if he meant it. He still had a race against his disease to win. "But I'm afraid you've got bigger problems ahead." 

"Who were those guys anyway?" 

"No idea. But they weren't a street gang, that's for sure. Soldiers probably." 

"Why would soldiers be after you?" 

Ethan stopped and looked at Angelina. "Me? I was just in the way. Those troops were after you. And I'm pretty sure you can figure out why." 

Angelina stared at the filthy floor in silence. The combat had been so quick, she wasn't sure what happened and had hoped it was just another weird dream; a delusion brought about by her pills and alcohol. But the surge of energy that was still flowing through her head shattered that illusion. She had to find out the truth. One way or another, she had to go home. 


	2. Coming Home

John Clancy stood patiently as he was frisked while his credentials were being run through the computer. Next to him was a platoon of serious looking soldiers and security officers. He wasn't sure what to expect, but the clandestine nature of the meeting did pique his curiosity. It was like something out from his past when he was dodging the best the Soviets..._oops, Russians he corrected_ had to offer. He briefly wondered what could be so secret in his own country that would allow them to violate the Company charter to conduct domestic operations, and then dismissed it. It wouldn't be the first time he had to poach the FBI's swimming pool and certainly wouldn't be the last. 

"You're cleared Captain Clancy," the security officer said as he handed John his authorization card back to him. "Go ahead and head to the office at the end of the hall. They've already started." 

John headed down the hall, taking the opportunity to look around. The Farm was unlike any government facility he had ever worked in. From the outside, it looked like a real farm, with real horses and hayfields. A trained eye however could pick out the carefully hidden security huts that surrounded the grounds, along with the small motor pool of black suburbans that didn't quite fit in a rural environment. 

"Come in Captain," a voice pleasantly ordered as John opened the door. Inside, there was another female military officer seated across from the desk. 

"Captain Clancy reporting as ordered," John recited. One never knew the temperament or sense of decorum a future commanding officer had. 

Raintree stood up and shook John Clancy's hand. "Please, take a seat" he offered. "Something to drink?" 

John Clancy shook his head; he knew when someone was trying for a "charm-offensive" and he wanted to evaluate any assignment on a clear head. "It's been a long trip Mr. Raintree." 

"Yes of course." Raintree opened a folder and slid a copy to John, who noted that the female officer already had a copy. "We need you and Captain Rogers for a very special long-term assignment. You both have extensive experience working on undercover assignments, which is why you're both here." That both were single without immediate family was carefully not mentioned. 

Captain Mary Ellen Rogers spoke up first, having the benefit of a head start reading the file. "So you need us to go deep cover as a married couple? And raise this little girl?" 

"Exactly," Raintree smiled. 

"What's the catch?" Mary asked coldly. She was enough of a pro to know that no government agency was going to pay highly trained covert agents to baby sit a child without a major catch. She wanted to know what she was in for before she stuck her neck out that far. 

"The child recently lost her parents," Raintree said as he shook his head sadly. His demeanor changed to stone cold almost instantly. "And trust me when I say that the less you know, the safer things are for the both of you." 

John flipped through the folder. "What's this about keeping her dosed on this drug? What kind of drug?" 

"You don't need to know. Suffice to say, you will be provided all the supply you could possibly need to keep the child properly medicated." 

Mary looked highly skeptical. Although compartmentalization was the norm for these kinds of operations, the more she heard about this assignment, she less she liked. "How long is this assignment supposed to go? I mean, I have a life, and I'm sure Captain Clancy has one too." 

"You won't be doing this alone," Raintree assured. "There's going to be an entire division of personnel assigned to back you up. While the girl is at school, she's going to be watched at all times by surveillance, so you will have some downtime." 

John continued to look at the briefing, barely concealing his astonishment. _A whole division? Almost 2000 personnel? A team of surveillance agents, medical personnel, psy-ops specialists? An entire tactical assault battalion? All to watch one baby? Had the whole world gone mad? Who or what the hell were they supposed to be guarding? If this baby was really that dangerous, then why not just eliminate her and be done with it?_

"How long do we have to decide on this assignment?" 

Raintree smiled coldly. "If you don't feel you're capable of accomplishing this mission, then I'll be very ...disappointed. But if that is the case, then yes, let me know by the end of today." He stood up and headed towards the door. "I like to consider myself a good judge of personnel. I picked the two of you because I believe that you have the best chance to accomplish this very important and vital mission. As you can see from the mission profile, this is no small matter. Our commitment to this project is very real and the consequences of this mission could very well decide the fate of the country for generations to come." He opened the door and stepped outside, leaving John and Mary alone. 

After the door closed, John looked at Mary and sighed. On the surface, it seemed like an easy assignment, except for the unspoken 800 lb gorilla of this mystery baby. The truth about the baby, he was sure he would eventually find out, but by then, he'd be committed. Furthermore, the time commitment was going to be a huge burden. He had hoped to come out of the field someday to start a family, but he would have preferred to start a real one. 

Mary returned John's expression with a look of guarded concern. A career built on successful undercover operations against the meanest drug dealers on some of the nastiest undercover sting operations was now going to be co-opted. So she could now spend the next few years babysitting someone else's little girl. Except she knew better. 

"So..." John began, trying to break the ice. "I guess we're going to be spending a lot time together." 

"I suppose so...darling..." Mary replied sarcastically. She would have to rehearse on her emotional responses, she knew. Better work the sass out while she still could. "I just have one gripe... why are we using your family name?" 

John smiled for the first time. Thank God for tradition. 

---

The sky was beginning to turn from black to the shade of dark orange of the coming dawn. Traffic was almost nonexistent going through the subdivision's school zones though there were a few early risers trying to beat rush hour. 

Angelina huddled in the back of a sedan as it slowly pulled into the subdivision. In front, a man calmly drove the car through the rows of houses. In her mind, Angelina could feel the steering wheel in his hands, see the streets from his eyes as they drove past familiar houses, and her will guiding the man's thoughts to do her bidding. _Like a puppet,_ she realized. The thought of what she was doing was frightening. _How am I doing this?_

Her head was also filled with strange mixture of sensations. The fog from the drugs was mostly faded. The voices and images were stronger than ever, but they were all covered by an overwhelming soothing euphoria that seemed to fill her whole body. It was like nothing she had ever felt before and it terrified her. 

"Turn right here," Angelina ordered as she felt her puppet obey her will. _Good God, what am I becoming?_ "OK, stop here." She stumbled out of the car and realized that she was exhausted from an entire night without sleep. She took a few steps, but then realized that the driver was just sitting in his car. "Um... you can go now?" she urged tentatively, and then breathed a sigh of relief when he carefully drove off. With any luck, the man wouldn't remember anything about his little detour. 

It had been a long grueling night for her. After escaping the soldiers' ambush downtown, Angelina had wandered through the city looking for help. There had been a few close brushes with military patrols but she managed to nudge them away by pushing things into their minds. _Like Obi-wan Kenobi_ she told herself; Mike would have loved to see that. 

She finally reached the end of the block and stood in front of her house. Ethan Taylor seemed to believe that the soldiers were after her, which meant that there was a bigger conspiracy at play. Anxiety was nibbling at her heart; how deep did it go? Were her parents involved? She and her parents hadn't gotten along the last few years, but she really didn't want to believe that they actually meant to harm her. Taking a deep breath, she walked into the only home she had ever known. Hopefully the answers would clear things up and she could go back to her regular life and put this freakish episode of head-games behind her. 

---

Gruber watched the suburbans pull into the compound as the sky slowly began to turn to dawn. According to the tactical team's report, things had gone badly. Worse of all, they had lost F67, and the clock was ticking. 

"Coming through, make a hole!" the medical personnel ordered as they rolled stretchers out to the waiting suburbans. One by one, they unloaded several of the soldiers as the field commander gave his report. 

"What's the status?" Raintree asked as he watched Gruber look them over. 

Gruber examined the first pair of paralyzed soldiers as they were lifted onto the stretchers. "Deep trance from their symptoms. We saw a small handful of these back on the original Project, Lot six from the ESPer group." 

"Offensive telepathic assault group," Raintree said from memory. 

Gruber nodded. "Unfortunately, I don't think we've seen a trance this deep. Waking them up is going to be tricky, assuming we don't get F67's willing assistance." 

"What about the rest of the team Major?" Raintree asked the field commander. 

Major Robert Nichols shook his head. "We couldn't touch her with any of our weaponry; bullets, darts, nothing. Not even gas. Worst of all, when we swept the area, we found this." He handed Raintree a small purse. 

Gruber looked at the purse and blanched. "Is that what I think it is?" 

Raintree reached into the purse and carefully pulled out a bottle of pills marked 'Insulin'. "I'm afraid so. What does this mean, medically speaking, Dr. Gruber?" 

"When was her last known dose?" Gruber asked. 

"According to those street punks we interrogated, they saw Subject F67 at the club take a pill around 9:30 that evening," Nichols reported. "We assaulted the warehouse approximately 12:45am." 

"Then she should have still been approximately 97 percent suppressed," Gruber replied. 

"If that was 3 percent, then we're screwed. It's going to take a lot more than just another SWAT team with conventional rifles to bring her in." 

Raintree looked at his watch. "It's almost 5. What would be her level of suppression now?" 

"If she had been sleeping, then the drug would have held mostly around that level for at least that long. But if she's been exerting herself, or worse, actually using her powers, then we can expect the drug levels in her body to degrade at an inverse geometric curve over time. In 12 hours, probably 95 percent. 24 hours, 89 percent. After that, it gets hard to predict. For what it's worth, she probably has no actual experience using those powers." 

"If she's throwing main battle tanks around like Matchbox cars, then she doesn't need experience Doctor," Nichols replied sharply. 

"Time is of the essence," Raintree agreed. 

"Sir, you'd better come see this," a surveillance agent reported. 

The group of men walked into the building where the agent came from. Inside, a bank of monitors and computers were alive with activity. "My...my..." Raintree mused as he watched the monitors. "How old is this picture?" 

The agent shook his head. "This picture is live. She's at the house." 

Raintree nodded. "Get the Clancys over there now. We'll try it the easy way and see if we can't nip this one in the bud." 

---

The house was small and frugal in furnishings. Looking at the decor with a different mindset, Angelina was struck by the lack of any sentimentality in the house. It never occurred to her while she was hazy from her drugs, but her home didn't feel like a home at all; there were no pictures on the walls, virtually no unnecessary decorations of any kind. By contrast, Madelyn's house was filled with pictures of every family outing they had ever taken, a modest display of Madelyn's musical awards, Mr. Packard's souvenirs from his career as a Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer, and some of Mrs. Packard's macramé on the dinner table. Ironically, there were more pictures of Angelina at the Packard's house than her own home. 

Angelina tried looking around at the surroundings, but her mind was burning with unfamiliar sensations. _Where's my coffee_ she heard and shook her head. That sounded like Mr. Robinson, her next-door neighbor. Across the street, she felt Mrs. Smith's hurried _let's go, let's go_ directed to her three kids. She had always thought she heard whispers, but having been off her pills all night, the voices were unmistakable and loud. All around her, her neighbors were all getting up out of bed and their mundane preparations for the day were echoing painfully through her head. All except for Mr. Summers down the street, who was still dreaming of line-dancing unicorns and cigar smoking green-skinned aliens. 

Angelina put her fingers to her temples as her head was pounding painfully from the conflicting thoughts and emotions. The euphoria she felt earlier when she was controlling her unwilling chauffeur had faded. It felt similar to how she felt last night at the nightclub, but clearer and louder than before. But just as she thought she couldn't take it anymore, two familiar voices cut through the mental static. 

_"I've got the pills. Are we ready for this?"_ John Clancy's voice asked. 

A silent nod then _"Let's get in character."_ Mary Clancy replied. 

Angelina shook her head in denial. She tried to search for any emotional signature with the voices she had known as her parents all her life. Even Mr. Robinson grumbled with discontentment as he drank his instant-brewed coffee. The only emotions she felt from her parents was... resolve. To do what? Make her take her pills? Even after all that had happened, that was their sole matter of concern? 

The front door to the house opened and John and Mary stepped inside. "Angelina, where have you been?" Mary demanded. 

"Young lady, we've been all over town all night looking for you!" John added harshly. "We even had to call the police, we were so worried!" 

Angelina shook her head as she dropped to her knees. The contradictory thoughts and images were assaulting her mind; she could clearly see her parents being briefed by soldiers. She could hear them talking to an older man about a new form of medication that would ensure obedience by addiction. She could smell the cigarette smoke from the sinister-looking man who oversaw the whole organization. 

"You're sick Angelina," John said, with a show of concern that would have sounded reassuring, had his thoughts about doing his real job not betrayed him. "We just came from the doctors and they say this will take the pain away." 

"N-no... I don't want them...!" Angelina said between gasps. As she struggled, the dishes, furniture, and other objects began to rattle. 

"They're for your own good, dear!" Mary implored. 

"You're lying...!" Angelina said. "I can see..." 

"No, it's all in your head Angelina! You're having paranoid delusions from your sickness!" John interrupted. "Just take your medicine and everything will be alright!" 

"No!" Angelina cried. The objects in the room began to come to life, as the house windows started to shatter one by one. John suddenly flew back and was slammed and pinned against the brick fireplace. Mary screamed and struggled against the hurricane of flying objects. 

"S-Stop...!" Mary beseeched. "Angelina stop! You'll kill him!" 

Angelina cringed as she could feel the blow against John's head. She hadn't meant to do anything but her confusion and pain was feeding the energy that was surging through her head. She could feel every single particle in the room moving in her mind. Trying to hold it back was like wrestling an avalanche. 

"Stop please!" Mary begged. "I'll tell you everything!" 

_Get control...get control..._ Angelina told herself. As she tried to get her thoughts in order, the room began to calm back down and John slumped back down to the floor. 

Mary ran over to John and looked him over. He probably had a concussion, but would be OK. She and Angelina looked at each other; both could feel the immediate change. A lifetime of family relationship, shaky though it was, vanished in an instant. Mary shook her head in fear and shame. She had once maintained cover when faced with three armed, angry drug dealers pointing guns at her when suspicions were raised, and here she was groveling for her own life from her own "daughter". 

"Y-you're right... we're not your parents..." Mary said, as she looked away, unable to meet Angelina's tearful gaze. "...and you don't have diabetes." 

"Who are those...other people...?" Angelina asked with a whisper. 

"I...I don't know the official designation. We were encouraged not to ask questions. Our orders were to raise you and maintain your medication levels. We were supposed to keep you under control until you were ready to be brought into the Project." 

"All those doctors...shrinks...councilors...?" Angelina tearfully asked. 

Mary nodded with exhaustion. "They're all in on it. Some of your teachers and our neighbors too." 

Angelina looked at Mary with grief and shook her head in denial. "How much...how much of it was real...?" 

"I'm sorry Angelina," Mary said with a husky whisper of resignation. "Your whole life is just a sham." 

---

"Shit...!" The surveillance agent hit an alarm. 

"What is it? What's going on?" Nichols asked as he rushed over to the monitor banks. 

"They're losing it sir!" the agent reported as he shook his head. 

Nichols watched the scene on the cameras with mounting tension. _Poor bastards_ he thought. _They never stood a chance._ "Immediate scramble, Alpha team! Assemble for rapid strike and rescue!" 

"Belay that order, Major," Raintree ordered. 

Nichols bristled. "Our covert agents need extraction!" 

"You just said earlier that F67 held off two platoons a few hours ago. How well do you think we'll do sending in a single strike platoon now? Besides, we can't conduct an overt strike in a residential neighborhood without compromising the Project's security." 

Nichols bit his lip at his instinctive response. Standing by while his men were in danger went against everything he trained for, even though he couldn't disagree with Raintree's logic. 

Raintree read Nichols disapproval and continued. "When we go in, we'll have better weaponry to handle the situation. Until then... I think I see an opportunity here." He watched the monitors, which observed Angelina fleeing the house as Mary picked herself up and waited for reinforcements. He nodded. "Send in a clean up crew." He then added with a sotto voce. "There's always clean up to do..." 

---

The old Nissan hatchback drove along the highway, doing its best to get to the main highway. Inside, Michael was driving with a mixed expression on his face as he navigated his way through the morning rush hour traffic. 

"Sorry for dragging you out here like this Mike," Madelyn said. "I just didn't know who else to turn to." 

"Hey, de nada," Michael shrugged. "I was wondering where she wandered off to last night. How the heck did she get all the way out here though?" 

"That's just it, she wouldn't say," Madelyn said with a worried expression. "She sounded crazy; she kept saying that she couldn't say anything on the open phone line." 

"Why? Is she in some kind of trouble?" Michael asked. 

"I don't know. Maybe she was kidnapped or something?" 

"Maybe she had a bad reaction to her medication? You said that stuff makes her foggy." 

Ahead of them, Madelyn pointed to a truck stop gas station/coffee shop combo store. There were several 18-wheelers parked in the open gravel parking lot, along with a dozen smaller cars filling gas and picking up supplies. Michael parked his car and the two of them got out and headed to the coffee shop entrance. Inside, the dining area was a third full, with the sounds and smells of breakfast being prepared. Above the cash register, a television was tuned to the morning news and traffic reports. 

Madelyn spotted Angelina almost immediately at one of the booths. She was wearing the same clothes from the previous night, but her hair and clothes were disheveled. Her face was streaked with dried tears and her eyes were sunken and bloodshot. 

"Angie?" Madelyn sat next to Angelina and nudged her on the shoulder. "What happened? You look like hell." 

Angelina slowly looked up with a fearful expression as Michael slid into the opposite seat in the booth. She shivered and squeezed her eyes shut as her shoulders slumped with relief. "You're not a part of it," she whispered. 

"A part of what?" Michael asked. 

"It's them," Angelina said fearfully. "They're coming after me!" 

"Who?" Madelyn asked. 

Angelina opened her eyes and her expression became almost calm and stern. "The people who called themselves my parents." 

"What happened? Did your folks freak out or something?" 

Angelina shook her head and her eyes began to tear up. "Everything I ever knew about them...was a lie. They weren't my real parents. They were government agents. They were assigned to keep me under control, while trying to indoctrinate me to some kind of military program." 

Michael and Madelyn looked at Angelina and each other. They did their best to hide their skepticism, but the doubts were loud as every other thought from every other customer were. "Why would the government be after you?" Michael asked with a measured voice. 

Angelina shook her head fearfully. The last thing she wanted was another calamity. "I... know things. I can do things..." 

"Angie, we need to get you to a doctor," Madelyn pleaded. 

"Maddie, I know I sound crazy," Angelina said. She looked at Madelyn and tilted her head slightly. "I also know you're planning a surprise for your Mom this Saturday. Your Dad and you were at the Randall's grocery store three days ago. The two of you agreed on a half-sheet white cake with vanilla frosting and blue lettering. Your dad told you that he was going to have the party early so your mom wouldn't see it coming." 

Madelyn blinked. "Um... well, I mean, you were at Mom's birthday party last year. You probably heard us talking about it." 

Angelina continued, "Your dad said, 'let's skip the macramé kit this year and get her something really special'. He told you he was going to replace the bathtub in your master bath and asked you to pick the design. You told him that mom always liked brown and yellow because it reminded her of sunflowers back in Kansas where she grew up." 

Madelyn stared speechless for a moment. "How did you...?" 

Michael interrupted, "Wait a minute... you're trying to say you can read her mind? That's kind of hard to buy." 

Angelina looked at Michael. "Think of something Mike. Something complicated that I wouldn't know." 

Michael looked skeptical, then amused. He looked up, and then looked back at Angelina. "OK, shoot." 

"The chemical behavior of atoms is due to the interaction between the electrons. The configurations are determined by the quantum mechanics of electrons in the electric potential of the atoms. The higher the energy level of a shell, the further away it is from the nucleus. The electrons in the outermost shell are called the valence electrons and have the greatest influence on chemical behavior." 

Michael shook his head. "No... no way. You read my textbook or something." 

"You're carrying six textbooks," Angelina protested. "You think that, without touching your backpack, I speed-read all of them and picked the right topic you were thinking from them?" 

Michael tried to come up with another explanation, but struggled. Madelyn looked at Angelina with disbelief. "H-how long have you been able to do this...?" 

Just then, a tinny rendition of the "Darth Vader theme" chimed. Michael looked around in confusion, but Madelyn indicated Angelina's phone. "That's her parents' ring tone." Seeing Angelina's paralysis, Madelyn picked up the phone and answered. "Hello?" 

"Hello young lady..." The voice on the other end was unfamiliar to Madelyn. It sounded cultured, warm, and almost grandfatherly. But hidden under the warmth was a sinister undertone. "I wonder if I might speak with Angelina." 

Madelyn handed the phone to Angelina's trembling hand. Angelina whispered, "Hello?" 

"Well Angelina," Raintree said. "I'd say this puts you way past your curfew, wouldn't you?" 

"Who is this?" 

"Believe it or not, someone who has your best interests at heart. I've been with you your entire life. I've watched you grow up from an awkward child to the beautiful young woman you are today. You could say I've been your guardian angel." 

"What are you, some kind of pedophile?" Angelina asked with a shocked expression. 

"Tsk... now, now, name calling doesn't reflect well on you. Didn't your parents..." Raintree chided with just a hint of deliberate irony, "...teach you better?" 

"I am hanging up now," Angelina said with a shaky tone. 

"Oh wait, please... you'll miss the best part... Tell me; are you near a television or radio? You see, we're coming up on the bottom of the hour. Wait for it..." 

Angelina's eyes drifted almost involuntarily at the television mounted above the coffee store cash register. Madelyn and Michael looked up as well right as the television program abruptly changed. 

"We interrupt this morning's newscast to bring you breaking news. Police are reporting that has apparently been a double-homicide in the sleepy subdivision of Farmers Village. According to eyewitnesses, there were signs of a disturbance in the house of John and Mary Clancy. When police arrived to investigate, they found both of them dead in the house in apparent foul-play." The television picture panned across the house, showing the chaos and damage that Angelina had left behind not long ago. She began to tremble as the television then flashed her face on the main picture. "Police are looking for Angelina Clancy, who they believe may have been involved with the homicides..." 

Madelyn gasped as both she and Michael looked at Angelina in disbelief. "Th-this is a mistake...! I didn't do anything...!" Angelina whispered. 

"Yes, of course it's a mistake," Raintree said soothingly. "And I'm sure that once you come in, we can clear up this awful misunderstanding." 

"You...you killed them...!" Angelina gasped between tears. Almost unnoticed, the silverware and condiments on the table began to vibrate and rattle. 

"Oh come now... considering how badly they treated you, I would think that you would welcome their end." 

"No..." Angelina shook her head. "I would never want that...!" 

As Angelina spoke, Madelyn watched in frozen fascination as the glass condiment bottles cracked and began leaking. Silverware began melting on the table as the television lost its signal and began displaying static. Michael tensed up as he looked around and saw similar incidents beginning to start on the other tables. 

"Of course you did," Raintree corrected. "The truth is, they had fulfilled their assignment anyway. All that has changed is simply an acceleration of a timetable we devised years ago when you were first born. From that moment, we knew that you would one day become our finest creation." Angelina shook her head as Raintree continued. "I've been following your journey tonight, and I have to say, I'm most impressed with what I've seen. You've far surpassed what even our most optimistic projections would have indicated. It is time to come in." 

Angelina clenched her eyes shut as tears forced their way out. She shook her head in denial. Suddenly, the windows to the coffee shop started to crack and then shatter one by one. Panic ensued among the customers and staff as bottles, mugs, plates, and cookware began exploding. Michael flinched as Madelyn held Angelina by her shoulders. 

"Angie, stop it!" Madelyn whispered frantically. 

"Come on," Michael extolled as he grabbed Madelyn and Angelina and hustled them to the exit. As they managed to get out along with the rest of the customers, the coffee shop windows blew outwards with explosive force. 

"Holy shit...!" Michael breathed, and then stared at Angelina as she cried in Madelyn's arms. He looked around and saw that police cars were already visible in the distance. "We better get her out of here." 

"Where can we go?" Madelyn asked. "If these government guys are after her, then they'll find her if we take her back to school." 

"Angie, first, lose the cell phone. If the government's really after you, they can DF off that," Michael said, and then pointed up the road. "There's a bus stop about half-a-mile up the road from here. If you can make it up to there, the bus will take you north on the highway out of town. Peter's dad has a hunting cabin that's way out in the woods about 50 miles from here." He paused, and then continued. "If you really can read minds, then you know where it is." 

Angelina wiped her face and nodded. As she regained her composure, the chaos from the coffee shop wreckage began to die down. 

Madelyn gave Angelina a hug. "We've got to go. If we don't show up in school, they'll be looking for us. We'll come get you tonight, I promise." 

---

Gruber looked over the body with the eye of a professional. He had examined numerous bodies back when the Project was in its initial phase of developing the treatments, and there were many times he had to look into why a patient failed to adapt to the program. In the course of this research, he had to remove several failed brains from their skulls. This was the first time though that brain-removal had already been handled for him. 

"What do you have there doctor?" one of the research technicians asked. 

"The tactical teams found one Mr. Ethan Taylor at the warehouse," Gruber said as he adjusted a forensics microscope. "Apparently he was the warehouse owner. The assault team said that he was the person found with Subject F67. He was found under a panel in the floor, leading to a tunnel in the sewers." 

The technician looked at the body with a mild smirk. "Looks like he didn't make it." 

"So it would seem..." Gruber said with uncertainty. Although he didn't say so, nagging doubts plagued him. The logical assumption was that someone else had found the body first. The cut around the skull indicated the use of a cranial saw. But why would someone go through the trouble of removing the man's brain? The equipment they found at the warehouse was all advanced medical gear. His blood showed signs of a highly oxidized compound that defied quick analysis. Was he a mutant or another research project? 

---

"We know you know something Miss Packard," the policeman said. 

Madelyn looked at the principal and policeman with a blank expression. She didn't want to give anything away, and all those evenings watching TV cop shows taught her that trying to lie to investigators usually ended up giving away vital clues. 

The principal crossed his arms. "Madelyn, you and Angelina have been friends since you were six. No one spends more time together than you two. Now, if you know something about what happened last night, you'd better tell us." 

"There is no way Angie could have anything to do with Mr. and Mrs. Clancy's death," Madelyn said flatly. 

"She very well might not have," the policeman conceded. "But right now, we have some serious questions that need to be answered. You're not helping your friend's case holding out on us." 

"I told you we were partying last night. We dropped her off at her house sometime after midnight and that's the last time I saw her." 

There was a long moment of silence as the policeman jotted down a few notes. The principal looked sternly at Madelyn. "I'm very disappointed in you young lady. Go to the detention office after school." 

"I have some place I have to be after school," Madelyn said with a hint of concern. 

"How long you spend there is up to you. Dismissed." 

Madelyn walked slowly back to her class. She had planned to go to meet Michael after school so the two of them could make a grocery run to the cabin outside of town, but now that plan was shot. There's no way her parents would let her go on a road trip when they found out she was on detention. 

What made matters worse was that Angelina would be stuck up in that log cabin all by herself for at least another day. Michael told her earlier that morning that the cabin didn't have utilities turned on or food because it wasn't hunting season yet. The nights were cold this time of year. She really hoped that Angelina would be OK for another night. 

---

"She's hiding something, I'm certain of it," the surveillance agent reported on his cell phone while talking at a private office. "According to the principal, the other students all say Madelyn Packard is the closest friend F67 has. If anyone knows where F67 went, she would. I want 24 hours surveillance put on Miss Packard. If she so much as burps, I want to know what she had for lunch that day." 

---

The cabin was every bit as rustic as Michael's memories suggested, with minimal facilities built in. Evidently Peter's dad was a fan of "roughing-it" and to make matters worse, the power and water hookups were currently inactive. There were a number of mounted animal heads on the walls; so they really did hunt here. She had managed to make it to the cabin by mid-morning, where she promptly collapsed onto the living room couch and passed out from exhaustion. By the time she woke up, it was dark. She shivered from the cold and fear. 

The bus ride had been a mixture of tension and discovery. A few people had recognized her from the television pictures, but a mental suggestion had persuaded them not to remember her. After getting off at the bus stop in the one-intersection town, she had compelled a passerby to drive her rest of the way to the cabin. Each time she did it, it was getting easier and more seductive. It was like a siren song in her head, and it was getting harder to resist the urge to toy with people's minds. She drew back in fear; the very thought of becoming such a monster terrified her. 

The first thing that struck her as she got up was the emptiness and clarity of her mind. For the first time she could recall, she wasn't hearing voices, or feeling the foggy side effects of her drugs. The second thing she noticed was her hygiene; she desperately needed a bath and her clothes were filthy. Finally, her stomach reminded her that she hadn't eaten since lunch the previous day. _God I'm starving..._ she realized. She stared at the sparse furnishings on the coffee table in front of her. _What I wouldn't give for a..._

As she completed her thought, she froze as an ashtray on the table began to shimmer and morph. Before she could complete the thought, the transformation was complete. What was once an ashtray was now a deli-ham and cheese sandwich. Angelina stared at it in disbelief for an instant before shaking her head in a mixture of tears and giggles. _OK, it's official...I'm losing my mind...this is all just a bad dream..._ She opened her eyes gingerly a few seconds later and still saw the sandwich. Despite her doubts, her stomach didn't care, so she reached for the sandwich. Suddenly, the sandwich exploded with a loud pop as she flinched in surprise. _What the heck..._ she wondered. She felt a faint tingling deep in her head during the transformation and subsequent detonation, which hinted that she was responsible for both. She cleaned the bits of ham and bread off and nibbled on a few pieces. They tasted OK, but why the explosion? It was as if these weird powers were taunting her just to be cruel. What was going on? 

---

Raintree swore a curse as he read the report sent in from the field agents that evening. Incompetent fools; did he have to do everything himself? He picked up the phone and dialed. 

"Surveillance," said the reply. 

"It's me," Raintree said unnecessarily. Everyone at this facility knew his voice. "What is this about Ms. Packard being on detention?" 

"Yes sir," the agent replied. "When Ms. Packard wouldn't answer our questions, the principal felt that he needed to apply pressure to get her to respond. She's currently at her residence, along with her parents. We have infrared cameras and laser microphones recording everything that's going on inside the house." 

"Of course she's at her house you morons," Raintree explained harshly. "I don't need laser mics to know she's probably being grounded as we speak. You get that principal on the phone and tell him to rescind that detention and to personally call her parents and apologize for the mix-up. What's the point of surveillance if the subject can't go anywhere?" 

He slammed the phone down and looked at the clock in his office. The moving second hand seemed to mock him. It had been almost thirty hours since F67's last known dose of the psychosuppression drug cocktail. Add another ten for another wasted day of school ahead. And that was assuming Ms. Packard made immediate contact after school, which was far from certainty. _My God... forty hours...if they didn't find her soon, there'd be no stopping her..._

---

"Hey Mike," Madelyn said as she walked into the school library. She knew that Michael was an early riser and liked to spend his mornings here when it was still quiet. 

"Hey Maddie. I heard about the detention. Did your folks give you grief?" 

"Actually that's the weird thing," Madelyn said. "When I got to school this morning, the first thing that happened was I got called back into Mr. River's office and he said I was off detention. He even apologized and promised to call my folks to tell them that he was sorry for the mix up." She shook her head. "It doesn't make sense." 

"Maybe it does," Michael said. He reached into his backpack and handed Madelyn a stiff flat gray sheet. "What's that look like to you?" 

Madelyn turned the sheet around and looked at it carefully. "It's a napkin...made of rubber?" 

"Silicate polymer," Michael corrected. "I took it from the coffee shop yesterday along with some of the silverware because I wanted to run a couple tests. It confirms a couple of things for me. For one, Angie isn't telekinetic." 

"Um... excuse me... we saw her blow up a coffee shop?" 

"Not a normal telekinetic," Michael elaborated. 

Madelyn looked at Michael with a puzzled expression. "I'm sorry; is there such a thing as a 'normal' telekinetic?" 

"Actually there is," Michael explained. "According to public records, there are about fifty known all around the world of varying degrees of abilities. Probably many more who aren't publicly known. Angie though is a molecular-kinetic. She doesn't move objects as objects. She moves atoms and molecules by altering sub-atomic bonds and valence electron shells." 

"Um... and for those of us who aren't planning to go to M.I.T...that means...?" 

"She changed the cotton in that napkin by bumping the carbon atoms up to the next successor in its molecular group; in this case, silicon." 

"OK, so what does that have to do with Principal Rivers canceling my detention?" 

"Angie said she was being followed by the government. She also said there was a councilor in the principal's office pushing her to join the Army, even though she's below legal age. Then it turns out that her parents were actually government agents, and she gets framed for their murder? It bugged me when I first heard it because all that together would imply a vast government conspiracy around her. And quite frankly, if she were just a normal telekinetic, then that really doesn't justify such a conspiracy around one person. The effort wouldn't be worth it." Michael paused, and then looked at Madelyn with a focused expression. "But if that person were a molecular-kinetic, who could also read minds, maybe even control them...?" He nodded at his own conclusion. "Then you have a really dangerous weapon; someone that justifies all that attention." 

Madelyn thought about the train of thought, and then looked around nervously and whispered, "You're saying... they got to Principal Rivers and now they're following me?" 

"You and Angie are like sisters. If I were them and I wanted to find where Angie went..." Michael nodded, "...yeah, I would." 

Madelyn looked worried. "We can't let them follow us. But we got to get some food to Angie. She can't last up in that cabin all by herself." 

Michael thought about it for a moment. "I think I have an idea about that. It might work, it might not, but it's worth a shot. Here's what we'll do..." 

---

The coaches' whistles chirped twice as the sounds of tackling faded in the background. Large heavy boys picked themselves up, offering each other their apologies, advice and encouragement. No, not boys, Madelyn corrected herself. Young men; some of them coming up to 260 pounds, and that was before all that protective gear each guy wore. 

Around the school practice field, several other students were also watching the field as they jogged around the track. A few hundred meters away, the subdivision road was busy with school buses pulling away for the afternoon. The cold air still seemed to carry the sounds of marching band music from the rehearsal that ended only a half-hour ago. 

Madelyn's calm demeanor didn't reflect what she really felt. She looked around; dozens of cars, scores of people ranging from students, parents, teachers, and pedestrians could be seen from the bleachers where she was seated. Any one of them or even several of them could be with the goons who were after Angelina. She watched as the football players wrapped up their practice with a final run around the track. She quickly homed in on the guys with the black "do-not-tackle" jerseys. It wouldn't do a team good if their quarterbacks ended up in traction because of a careless hit in practice. 

"Pete!" Madelyn called out, getting one of the player's attentions. 

"Hey Maddie," Peter waved back. One of the linemen gave Peter an elbow jab as he left the pack of sweaty players. _Lucky dog_ the facial expression said quite clearly. 

"So, they make you starter yet?" Madelyn asked with a smile. 

Peter shook his head. "Wade's still the man. So what's up? I heard about what happened to Angie's folks. How's she holding up?" 

"Um... I haven't seen her since the nightclub," Madelyn said with a shake of the head. 

Peter looked at Madelyn warily. "You're taking it awful well. I would have thought the two of you'd be mourning together." 

"Nah, I'm not the mourning type," Madelyn said with a smile that she hoped didn't look too phony. You never knew when telescopic cameras or shotgun microphones were pointed at you. "You wanna go to a movie?" 

"Yeah, sure. Let me get showered and I'll meet you in the gym." 

---

Michael pulled his Nissan through the mall parking lot and checked his watch. He had suggested this mall because it had a parking garage, which hopefully meant no satellite coverage. Was he being paranoid, he wondered? And if not, then just how many people were following them? They couldn't follow every student in school, could they? 

He bit his lip; he knew Madelyn and Angelina would both walk through fire to help one other, so there was no talking them out of it. Still, he didn't really explain to Madelyn just how dangerous this kind of game could get. These guys were sounding like very serious people. If they thought it meant getting someone like Angelina back, they'd probably kill anyone who stood in their way. At the same time, they couldn't just leave Angelina out all by herself. In addition to getting supplies, Angelina's apparent lack of control really worried him. Being a freshman, and not one that ever showed much interest in science, she probably had no idea how powerful or dangerous her abilities really were. If she didn't learn fast, she could be a danger to herself and everyone around her. 

Michael turned his attention back to his watch. Digitals were so much easier to synchronize, he thought with a smile. Now all he had to do was hope that Madelyn was right on... 

The fire door burst open and Madelyn ran out of the movie theater, dragging Peter behind her. Peter had a confused look on his face. "What? The movie just started..." 

"I know," Madelyn said with a contrite expression. "Get in, we'll explain everything." 

"Mike?" Peter asked as he looked in the car. 

"Yeah, come on." 

Peter reluctantly got into the car and noticed Madelyn duck to the floorboards. "Get down Pete!" she urged. 

Peter shook his head and dropped below the car door window. "Is this some kind of prank?" 

Michael pulled onto the streets and drove quickly and smoothly. The movie was supposed to last two hours; hopefully the government guys who watched them go into the theater would stay dumb for at least that long. "Get comfortable Pete. This is gonna take a while to explain..." 

---

The surveillance agents watched from across the street with cameras and microphones. According to their men in the lobby, the movie was just getting out, so they expected to reacquire their targets any time. Inside the movie lobby, a pair of younger agents who could plausibly pass as college students watched the movie patrons exit the theater, with roughly half of them queuing up for the bathroom. Pretending to watch a movie preview on one of the theater's big television screens, they watched the patrons one by one. As the stream died down to a trickle, they looked at each other with worried expressions. 

"Check the bathroom," one agent ordered as he headed to the auditorium. In front of him, the janitorial staff was already beginning to clean the aisles of discarded popcorn, candy wrappers and half-empty cups of stale soda. The agent looked through the aisles one by one before his eyes drew to the heavy fire door at the rear of the auditorium. "Shit...!" he muttered and ran back to the lobby. 

"No joy," the female agent said as she came out of the bathroom. 

The male agent pulled out a communicator. "We lost them! Is the car still there?" 

Outside, the agents in the van ran out into the parking garage and looked around. They quickly found Peter's suburban. The lead agent looked around in frustration, even though he knew it was futile. "Damn it...!" He pulled out his communicator. "Base, this is Sparrow-1, we lost the target!" 

---

"That has to be the craziest thing I've heard," Peter said as they raced along the highway outside town. 

"It's true Pete," Madelyn said. "We saw her do all kinds of stuff." 

"Super powers aren't as odd as you might think," Michael reminded him. "European Freedom Force, Red Nova, Dark Saviors, all those weird robberies in town the last few months...super powers aren't exactly rare." 

"OK, I'll grant you that," Peter conceded. "But come on, the whole government's after Angie?" 

"We don't actually know it's the whole government," Madelyn admitted. "But you gotta admit something's going on. Why else would Angie's parents be government agents?" 

Peter crossed his arms with a dubious expression. "You only have her word on that. She could have been having a bad reaction to her diabetes medication." 

"Pete, you know better than that. For starters, when was the last time you saw someone who's supposed to be a class 1 diabetic drink a chocolate shake and not risk going into insulin shock?" 

Peter shrugged. "I don't know. I don't really know much about diabetes. That still doesn't mean there's a government conspiracy to get Angie. I mean, why would they target her in particular? You just said that telekinetics aren't that rare." 

"True; but a telekinetic just picks up big rocks and throws them, when it comes right down to it. Angie's a very rare, special case. She could turn lead into gold, or coal into plutonium. If she doesn't get control in some way, she could accidentally vaporize a city block." 

Peter took a moment to think about it, and then pouted. "Great... and you guys just volunteered my dad's cabin?" 

"We didn't have any other choice," Madelyn insisted. "We had to get her to safety." 

Peter shook his head and sighed. "So say all this is true. What are you guys going to do next? Have her stay there until the heat dies down? That's not exactly going to happen if she's charged with double-homicide, even if it is a frame-job." 

Madelyn and Michael glanced at each other in silence. Peter's point stung them both; neither had an answer. The whole situation had happened so fast; they didn't have time to consider "what next". The only thing they could do was cross their fingers and hope that things would work out. 

---

The surveillance offices were swarming with activity as Raintree looked on with a grim expression. It was one thing to let Subject F67 slip through the dragnet; she had telepathic powers the agents had to factor in. But now a pair of regular high-school kids had just made their whole division look like fools with a stunt that probably came right out of Scooby-Doo. It would have been laughable were it not for the national security implications of losing their collar on F67. 

"There's still no activity on the suburban," the lead surveillance agent reported. "We're going on the hypothesis that they swapped cars with a third party. We're checking the mall security cameras near all exit points from the theater auditorium. One thing's come up though; one of the cameras in the parking garage was apparently sabotaged earlier this evening. We've got no eyes coming or going from that location." 

Raintree shook his head with amusement and frustration. "Maybe we should just hire these children to run our covert ops teams," he said sarcastically. He then reminded himself that sometimes, amateurs could surprise experienced pros because the former didn't know what was supposed to be impossible and what wasn't. "What about our own camera teams outside the parking garage?" 

"They're going through the tapes now, but nothing. If they were smart enough to switch cars, then chances are they were hiding in whichever car they used to get away." 

"Alright, first, I want a team of ground agents sweeping that mall and the surrounding stores. Make sure they aren't hiding in some janitor's closet. Next, I want a list of every plate, make and type car of every student registered at that school. Cross-reference that list to every single car that left that mall in the last four hours. Every car that gets a hit on that list, I want tracked down. Get me SATCOM and tell them we need a satellite tasking order on this entire area." 

---

The Nissan managed to struggle to the end of the gravel road that led to the log cabin. The sun was already beginning to set and the woods were deep in shadows. As the car headlights got closer to the house, it was immediately apparent that the windows to the cabin had been shattered. 

"Oh man...!" Peter said. 

"Ouch...not a good sign..." Michael said with a sotto voce and a cringe. 

"My dad's gonna kill me!" Peter added lamently. The three of them got out of the car and headed towards the front door. Inside, they paused with surprise at the sight of various objects throughout the cabin floating through the air and furniture in disarray. As Peter and Michael stood frozen with shock, Madelyn rushed into the room where Angelina was lying on the couch. 

"She's burning up," Madelyn said as she put her hand on Angelina's forehead. 

Michael came over and looked Angelina over. "She's dehydrated. Pete, there's some bottled water in the ice chest in the trunk." 

Peter trotted back to the car and returned with the bottle. He tossed the bottle to Michael. "I'll go get the power and water going." 

Michael cracked the seal on the bottle and began carefully pouring the water into Angelina's mouth. "Slowly... slowly..." he coaxed. 

After several mouths of water, Angelina began to cough and slowly open her eyes. "God, I look terrible..." she whispered weakly. 

"You look great Angie," Madelyn whispered back as she caressed her head. 

"I can read your mind," Angelina reminded her. 

"No peeking," Madelyn chided. 

Angelina then looked over to the back door as Peter returned from the utilities shed. "No laundry machine, huh?" 

Peter crossed his arms in a deadpan smirk. "It's a hunting cabin. Grunge is part of the experience." 

---

Raintree paced the floor as the entire surveillance wing went over every single lead they could find. The monitors tracked leads and clues from a wide variety of sources. 

"There were a total of seventy-two cars from the school that came or went from the mall parking lot during the time window," the lead agent reported. "Of those, fifty-six of those cars went to their registered home residences; twelve went to another commercial location; restaurants, stores, and the like. We managed to find three on the road and have tails on them as we speak." 

"That leaves one," Raintree said. 

"Yes sir. We were about to ask for permission to put out an APB." 

Raintree pondered his options. The last thing he wanted was some overzealous highway state trooper running his target off the road if the kids decided to try and make a break for it. "Very well. But don't issue any specific warnings. Issue an order that the car is only wanted for questioning. We don't want to provoke another confrontation until we have our forces in position." 

"Acknowledged. Meanwhile, we have people at traffic control examining the stoplight cameras. We spotted the missing car on some cameras, indicating that the car went north to the highway out of town." 

"What settlements would be on the north-bound highway?" 

"There are several, but fortunately, most of them are pretty small. We're sending teams to every one of them with pictures for identification purposes, and satellites have been tasked to look for any unusual activity." 

Raintree nodded, but continued to watch the clock. It had now passed 60 hours since that previous dose; he made a note to visit Dr. Gruber to get an estimate on F67's power levels and Major Nichols to discuss tactical scenarios. 

---

Madelyn scrubbed the stains off the walls and floors. Broken kitchenware and furniture though was going to take more; she was already calculating what it was going to cost her to repair the damage. She sighed at the thought; so much for saving up for Spring Break. But it wouldn't be fair to leave Peter holding the bag for his dad's place. After all, it was their idea coming here in the first place. 

"How's it going?" Peter asked as he walked into the small kitchen. 

"It's coming..." Madelyn said then paused. "I'm really sorry about dragging you out here like this." 

Peter waved it off. "I guess this isn't the kind of thing you can plan for." 

"Probably not," Madelyn shook her head ruefully. "So did Angie convince you?" 

Peter took a deck of cards out of his pocket, put them on the counter and smirked. "We have got to take her to Vegas." 

Madelyn smiled. "You know, I don't think Angie's ever been to Vegas. I went once when I was twelve. Angie's folks wouldn't let her come with us though." 

"Guess it wasn't part of the government's agenda." 

Madelyn looked down. "It's still kind of hard to get used to that. I've been to Angie's place so many times, but I never really got to know Mr. and Mrs. Clancy. They were always so distant, even with Angie. I...I guess I always thought they were just being overly protective and careful, since Angie was always kind of sick all the time." 

"So was she always psychic?" 

Madelyn shook her head. "Nah... well...if she was, she never told me. Whenever she took her medicine, she could barely concentrate on anything, let alone read minds." She paused a moment. "Which I guess was kind of the point, now that I think about it." 

"So the government kept her drugged up all this time so..." 

Just then, a loud pop could be heard outside. Madelyn and Peter both looked out a window, then to each other. Peter shook his head. "I better go see what's going on." 

Outside, Peter watched with some surprise at the sight of rocks, logs, and debris flying through the air, with random pieces blowing apart or crumbling into dust. He stood back what he hoped was a safe distance as he watched Michael giving Angelina some instructions. 

"So you're saying not to grab stuff?" Angelina asked. 

"Exactly," Michael explained. "Don't think of a rock as a solid object. For you, it really isn't. Think about it as a collection of sand. Or better yet, a Tinker toy construction. To pick it up, you have to pick up every single spool with equal force without breaking the wood sticks. The way your powers work, if you just grab an object, you'll squeeze out the empty space between the atoms and break the molecular bonds." 

"You know, I've never seen a Tinker toy until just now, looking in your mind," Angelina said as she closed her eyes. "So, is that why all this stuff is blowing up?" 

Michael squirmed a little; the idea that his mind was being read so transparently was just eerie. "Matter wants to attain a state of stability. When you push the molecules into an unstable state, it's going to break apart into more stable components. Usually when it does that, it releases the energy that held the molecules together." 

"What about if I want to change stuff on purpose? You were the one who said I could turn lead into gold and stuff like that." 

"Ah...I think you'd better stick to just keeping stuff stable for now," Michael cautioned. "Walk, then run." 

"Hey Mike, don't take this the wrong way," Peter said as he watched. "I know you're probably the smartest guy in school, but what do you know about being a telekinetic?" 

"Me? Not a thing. Max Conrad though, knew plenty." 

"Who?" 

"Max Conrad, aka Maxwell the Magician? Robbed banks back in the 70s wearing a top hat and magician's outfit?" 

"I think I remember hearing something about that. Wasn't he the guy who'd wave his magic wand and pop bank safes open?" 

"Yep, that's him. He was later caught by Captain Amazing in '78, and did a stint in prison. He later found Jesus and went straight. After he got out, he wrote a book about his life. Anyway, it turns out he was a telekinetic. In part of his book, he described what it was like growing up different and how he learned to use his abilities." 

"Boy, you really thought this stuff out," Peter said with amazement. "And here I just thought you were just improvising bullshit from Star Wars." 

"Strong is she with the Force," Michael said with a grin and his best Frank Oz impersonation. "But first she must unlearn what she has learned." 

Peter shook his head and grinned. Angelina began to giggle at the joke. Then suddenly, chunks of levitating wood began exploding into flame as the rocks burst into shrapnel. 

"Shit...!" Peter said as he flinched and ducked behind cover. 

Angelina screamed and froze as bits of rock and fire slid around her lithe form. As she tensed up, the trees around her began to melt into tar. 

Michael ducked as a burst of flame singed his hair. "Angie! Listen to me! Concentrate! You're agitating the molecules. You gotta slow them back down!" 

Angelina nodded frantically and focused her mind. The air around the area instantly plummeted to frigid sub-arctic temperatures. The branches and leaves began cracking and splintering into crystalline ice. 

Madelyn ran out of the cabin as the chaos began calming down as Peter picked himself up and looked around. Michael panted with relief and picked up some of the debris. 

"What happened?" Madelyn asked breathlessly as she shivered from the cold. 

"I... I'm sorry," Angelina said. "I got distracted." 

"Yeah," Michael said. "To be more specific, you started breaking the organic compounds out of all the wood and oxidizing it with the oxygen in the air. The combustion probably distracted you further which caused a chain reaction with the inorganic rock." 

"Hey Yoda, can't you just say she started a fire like everyone else?" Peter asked as he rubbed his arms for warmth. 

"Angie, can you...like...heat things up a little without burning the forest down?" Madelyn asked as she panted from the cold. 

Angelina nodded and closed her eyes. The more she focused, the more she could feel the atoms and molecules in her mind. They were bouncing around slowly like ping-pong balls. _Faster_ she thought. The air slowly began warming up; the last few hours of practice were beginning to show results. 

"Control, control, you must learn control," Michael said, imitating Frank Oz again. Angelina smiled and started chuckling again, only to slip as the air again began heating up to uncomfortable levels. 

"Uh oh...let's not start that up again..." Peter moaned. 

---

"Contact! We got a hot flash on sats!" the surveillance agent reported. 

Raintree and Nichols both gathered around the monitors as the satellite showed a multi-color picture of the surrounding area. The colors changed abruptly and flickered hot and cold. 

"Got it! Fifty miles north of the city--it's a hunting town. There's a log cabin in the middle of the thermal bloom." 

"What did we just see?" Nichols asked. 

The surveillance agent pressed a button and rolled the recording backwards, then restarted the playback. "There was a momentary flash of heat; estimate at 170 Celsius, then a few seconds later, the temperature dropped to minus-65 Celsius before returning to normal." 

"That's got to be her," Nichols agreed. 

"Deploy your men Major," Raintree ordered. "Bring our wayward little girl home." 

---

Peter loaded the empty ice chest back into the trunk of Michael Nissan hatchback. He took a look around to assess the damage. Upon second examination, things weren't as bad as he first thought, and they were getting better. He looked closely at the windows; Angelina had literally knitted the glass windows back into solid sheets, with some coaching from Michael. Inside, the furniture was restored to its original condition; if anything better than before. Earlier that morning, Peter actually had to suggest that they restore some of the wear-and-tear Angelina fixed in some of the older furniture pieces. If his father noticed the furniture's new mint condition, he would have been at a loss to explain the changes. 

"So what are we going to do next?" Madelyn asked as she came outside along with Michael and Angelina. 

Angelina looked down. "I don't know. Maybe if I knew who set me up, I could get them to confess and clear my name." 

"Those government guys you mean?" Peter asked. 

"That sounds kind of tough Angie," Michael said. "Even if you did find them, how are you going to get them to confess? Start breaking their fingers or something?" 

Angelina shifted uncomfortably. "I can...also...make people do stuff...with my mind." 

There was an awkward pause. "What kind of stuff?" Madelyn asked. 

"Um... pretty much all kinds of stuff," Angelina admitted. 

"The nightclub," Michael said with an epiphany. "I thought that was you." 

"Wait a minute," Peter said. "So Angie can read minds, control molecules, and make people do whatever she wants? Any other super powers you want to fess up to?" 

"Hey, Angie's not on trial here," Madelyn said defensively. 

Angelina shook her head. "No, that's it as far as I know." She looked at Peter dolefully. "It's scary, I know. I...I didn't ask for this. Everything I thought I knew about my life's been tossed away these last few days. Not long ago, there were days I could barely remember my own name. Suddenly, I'm hearing every stray thought from everyone around me. Stuff is blowing up every time I think about it. People are doing whatever I'm thinking of. It's like a nightmare for me and I can't wake up." 

Peter returned the stare before looking away. _No wonder the government's after her_ he thought before abruptly noticing Angelina staring at him. "S-sorry...I-I didn't mean it that way..." 

Angelina looked back down and shook her head. "Forget it. Mike's already thought the same thing." Before Michael could ask, she added, "That I should be taken into government custody." 

"What?" Madelyn asked as she looked at Peter and Michael with indignation. 

"Wait a minute," Michael said with a defensive tone. "I never thought that you should be under government control. I admit I understood why they would try to get you under their control. But the last thing I'd want would be having you serve any government entity that's Machiavellian enough to take things to this level. If you ever did fall under a corrupt government agency, there'd be no limit to what they could do. We're talking about overthrowing foreign nations, conducting covert wars, manipulating the domestic populous, or for that matter, even the highest levels of power within the legit parts of our own government." 

"Angie, I don't know what other super powers you end up having and I don't care," Madelyn said firmly. "You're still the same sweet person I grew up with. You're family to me. All this talk about starting wars and controlling people; it's crap. If anyone's going to have all that power, I'd rather it'd be you than some evil government group." 

"Yeah," Peter added. "Just don't start leaping tall buildings in a single bound." 

"I wouldn't bet against her being able to do that actually," Michael added. 

Angelina stared out into the woods as Madelyn did a double take at Michael's comment. She then turned back to Angelina. "You OK, Angie?" Madelyn asked. 

"Go back inside," Angelina whispered. 

"What's up?" Michael asked. 

"Please," Angelina pleaded. "There's not much time." 

"What?" Peter asked lightly. "The evil black helicopters are coming?" 

As Peter made his comment, the faint sounds of helicopters could be heard just barely over the horizon. 

"You had to say it," Michael said with a deadpan expression. 

---

Major Nichols shifted uncomfortably in the battle armor. Supposedly it was going to give his troops a decent chance against his opponent, but it was sure uncomfortable to wear. 

"Target in sight Major!" the pilot said over the intercom. "Looks like there's a car in front of the cabin. Possibly more people are in the area." 

Nichols nodded, turned to his troops and gave a hand signal. "No witnesses!" He then turned to the pilot. "Start it up!" 

---

Angelina flinched as she felt the high-speed shells leaving the helicopter chain guns. There were thousands of them and they felt much stronger than the ones she stopped a few nights ago at the warehouse. Behind her, a translucent field of energy surrounded the cabin. _"Nothing gets through,"_ she willed the atoms in the air as they solidified into a shimmering wall. 

She had just formed the force wall before another set of molecules were launched at her. Bigger, slower, they were being propelled by thrusters and they had complex chemical molecules in their tips. The first ones detonated right as the thought _rockets_ formed in her mind and another set of solidified atoms formed around her own body. The force of the impact threw her across the road and into a tree. Right next to her, another volley of rockets exploded right next to Michaels Nissan, exploding it into a ball of fire. 

She picked herself up; she could already feel Michaels dismay at the loss of his car. Another thing she would have to address, assuming she was still around to do so after this assault. Their tactics had changed; Angelina was momentarily confused by the contradiction. The soldiers in the helicopters wanted her alive, but were using lethal force this time. No gas or tasers or anything like that. Their tactics were apparently to keep enough pressure on her, gamble on her inexperience using her powers, and hope that she would collapse from the pressure. And if she let them rain death and destruction on her long enough, they just might succeed. But she didn't want to just blow them out of the sky; that wasn't a step she was ready to take, no matter what the risk. 

_Mike,_ she mentally projected, _how do you stop a helicopter without destroying it or hurting the people inside?_

_Um... ah..._ Mike shook off the destruction of his car. Worry about that later, if they survived, he told himself. _Choke off the fuel to the tail rotor. As long as it doesn't get blown off or stop too fast, an experienced pilot will know they need to land if their stabilizing rotor is going bad._

Angelina silently thanked Michael for his advice and coaching. If he hadn't been here for the last day and a half, there would have been no way she would be anywhere near as capable with her abilities as this. _Guns go away..._ she willed as the weapons and rockets on the gunships crumbled into rust. _Rotors, slow down..._ she then commanded as stabilizing tail rotors began slowing to a quarter of their normal speed. 

---

"Shit...!" the pilot said as the warning lights began flashing. All the weaponry in the gunship went offline and now the helicopter was beginning to pitch and roll uncontrollably. Without the tail rotor's counter-torque, they couldn't stay in the air for long. "Crash positions!" he yelled into the intercom. 

Nichols cursed as all of the pilots issued crash warnings to their passengers. He saw the helicopter weaponry crumble into powder and it didn't take a genius to figure out how eight attack helicopters would all have the same catastrophic failures. He had expected a fight, but not this kind of subtle strategic planning. Was she getting help? "All teams, deploy for ground assault!" 

---

Angelina watched with nervous adrenaline. Not too shabby, she thought; no one was going to get killed. But the fight wasn't over; she began to focus on the chatter in the minds of the soldiers. Already, each soldier was going over their assigned duties and getting their weapons ready. 

_They're coming..._ Angelina warned. _Mike, how do you stop the following? Sonics, lasers, and particle cannons?_

_You're shitting me..._ Michael tried not to mentally reply. He shook his head and thought about it. _Sonics, easy, vacuum pocket around yourself. You won't be able to hear anything but no sound can get through a vacuum. Lasers? You might try refraction by condensing the air between yourself and the source to deflect them, but that's kind of tricky. Neutrino particle cannon? Depends...we haven't tested if you can control matter to the degree of elementary particles. Try and see if you can accelerate the lepton particle decay by disrupting the weak nuclear force holding them together._

Angelina cried out in pain as the first beams of energy lanced across the force fields around her body. Most of the beams force were dispersed, but enough cut through to cause pain across her abdomen. _Can you... dumb that down a little...?_ she asked frantically. 

---

"Sonics aren't doing anything Major," the lead squadron reported. "Cannon's tagging her good though, but we're having problems with the laser targeting." 

"Pour on the cannons then," Nichols ordered. "Get the restraints ready! If she falls, I want her neutralized fast before she can recover!" 

---

Peter, Madelyn and Michael all doubled-over in agony as the particle cannons continue to arc through Angelina's force field. They abruptly realized that a huge disadvantage when mentally linked to an inexperienced telepath under heavy assault was getting to share all the pain. 

_Angie, screw the weapons!_ Peter urged through the pain. _Take out the soldiers firing them!_

_Didn't you say you can make people do whatever you want?_ Madelyn chimed in. _Can't you put them all to sleep?_

Angelina focused her mind. First thing was first; she reached into Peter's, Michael's and Madelyn's minds and willed them to feel no pain. As she expected, the sensation of euphoria filled her mind, blocking her own pain and allowing her to concentrate more fully. Next, she mentally reached out into the minds of the soldiers and let her own thoughts reach out and connect to everyone in the surrounding area. The conflicting and painful chatter between discordant thoughts and emotions began to sing together in harmony in her mind. All the years of crippling drug-induced blindness vanished in a flash. The rush of ecstasy filled her body and soul. In an instant, she could feel every impulse, whim and thought of all the soldiers and her friends at her fingertips. _Obey me, and sleep..._ she commanded. Seconds later, the sounds of battle faded, with only the helicopters disturbing the peace. After checking that there were no more threatening thoughts, she released her hold on the force wall protecting the cabin, and the door opened tentatively. 

"Is it over?" Madelyn asked. 

Angelina nodded. "I think so." 

Peter looked around at the battle damage and the unconscious soldiers. He shook his head. "Boy, if you ever get back to school, no one's going to pick on you ever again." 

Michael looked around and groaned. As the adrenaline wore off, more mundane matters returned to his mind. "Ah man... how am I going to explain this...?" 

Angelina walked slowly into the woods, drawn by a specific set of thoughts. In the woods ahead of her, the helicopters were still running while parked on the ground from their rough landings. One by one, Angelina picked her way through the soldiers before coming on one in particular. She snapped her fingers. _Wake up,_ she commanded. 

Nichols opened his eyes and looked up at Angelina with fear. "I...I can't move..." 

_You get to move when I let you._ Angelina stared at him for a moment. Inside his mind, Nichols tried to shield his thoughts, but failed completely. _You're the one who killed Mom and Da..._ Angelina trailed off and looked away. It was going to take her time to get used to the whole thing. 

"I had my orders," Nichols replied defiantly. 

_You're a murderer,_ Angelina accused. _Not just...Mr. Clancy and Miss Rogers, but all those other people. All for this... Project..._ she added in disbelief and grief. 

"We did what we had to!" Nichols retorted. "To protect people from monsters like you!" 

Angelina trembled at the accusation. It wouldn't have hit her so hard if it didn't ring so true. What were people going to think? Would they understand? Or would they see her as Major Nichols did? A monster; a weapon that needed to be harnessed or destroyed. 

Angelina shook her head; no, he was wrong. She was a human being, with free will, hopes and dreams like any other. She deserved the chance to live a life free from the meddling of any secret government agency. And most importantly of all, she wasn't a murderer. It was time to clear that up. _Alright, Mr. Nichols, this is what's going to happen..._

---

"In other news today, police are reporting a break in the Clancy homicides. They report that a number of men have stepped forward, claiming responsibility for the crime. Now the police have refused to elaborate further, other than that they are still investigating all leads, and that they hope to solve the case as soon as possible." 

---

The van pulled up into the mall parking garage late at night in front of Peter's suburban before Michael, Madelyn, Peter and Angelina got out. Angelina made a subtle gesture before the driver drove off. 

"I swear, that is just creepy," Peter admitted. 

"Is he going to be OK?" Madelyn asked. 

"Yeah," Angelina confirmed. "He lives just across town, so we didn't detour him too much, and he won't remember anything when he gets back." 

"What are all the other folks in school going to think about this?" Peter asked. 

"No!" Angelina exclaimed. "I'm begging you! Please don't tell anyone! I don't want people to think I'm some kind of monster!" 

There was a long silent pause as they looked at each other. Madelyn nodded and gave Angelina a hug. "You know I'd never do anything to hurt you." _And you do need a bath..._ she thought whimsically. 

Angelina smiled at the addition. Behind her, Michael nodded and walked up to her. "You know, you better get some practice with those powers or us keeping quiet's going to be the least of your problems." 

Angelina nodded. "I know. And I'm sorry about your car. I'll make it up to you, I promise." 

Peter shook his head. "Well, seeing as you're asking and not just making us forget..." 

"Pete!" Angelina said with a hurt expression. 

"Hey, I'm just saying..." Peter said with his hands held up in a defensive posture. He sighed. "Yeah, sure, I'll keep quiet." 

The four of them nodded and took each other's hands. They then got into Peter's suburban. As they pulled away, Madelyn lightly asked, "So what's your costume going to look like?" 

"I'm not going to wear a costume," Angelina said as she rolled her eyes. 

"You have to," Peter added. "It's superhero union rules." 

"I...don't think they actually have a union," Michael added. 

"I'm not going to be a superhero," Angelina said as she shook her head. 

"Why not?" Madelyn asked. "You've got the figure for it." 

"Maddie!" 

---

Raintree walked through the corridors of the Farm with a grim expression on his face. It had been a frantic few hours of cover up and dissemination, not to mention the loss of so many personnel. Gruber had also confirmed his worst fears; as bad as things turned out, F67's power wasn't even close to peaking. Conventional brute force was no longer an option. It was clear that they would need another strategy to bring F67 into their auspices. He entered his office to examine his options; he was only mildly surprised to see someone waiting for him. 

"Come in Mr. Raintree," a harsh voice ordered. 

"What can I do for you General Garner?" 

"I like to think that I give my subordinates enough latitude to do their jobs. I know that, with projects of this nature, it's sometimes better not to know the ugly details. So imagine my surprise when I see a television report that one of your own operatives is spilling his guts to the police about committing murder and giving intimate details about the Project to the press." 

"We have that under control, General. I've already ordered our people in the police and the media to downplay the reports as paranoid delusions. Our cover stories are already providing proof that no such projects exist." 

"And the murders?" 

"Unfortunately, those are a matter of public record. The best thing we can do in that regard to is to ensure that those cases never reach trial." _Sorry Major Nichols..._ Raintree thought. _No hard feelings..._

"And what about the subject F67? Are you going to call in those little boys?" 

"The boys aren't ready yet. A little more training I think." 

"Then what do you have in mind?" 

"Follow me." 

Raintree lead Garner down another set of hallways into a set of laboratories. "I told Captains John Clancy and Ellen Rogers many years ago that I consider myself a good judge of personnel. And that I picked them because I felt that the two of them had the best chance to accomplish our very important and vital mission." 

They opened the door and Garner recoiled slightly in disgust at the sight in front of him. "Good...God... you've stolen the Clancys' bodies?" 

Gruber came forward from behind an environment suit. "Let's just say General that I have some theories about brain functions that can be accomplished, even at this late stage of the game," he said with a sinister tone. 

Raintree nodded with approval. "As I told Captains Rogers and Clancy, their commitment had to be very real and total, because the consequences would decide the fate of our country for generations to come. I fully intend to see that they fulfill that commitment." 

Garner shifted uncomfortably. "What...exactly do you expect to accomplish with this...?" 

"By this point in time, our darling little Angelina can probably pick out deception from any living mind around her. She can control their thoughts and alter their perceptions, which make conventional methods fairly obsolete. But an artificial mind... one based on someone who's not living anymore... well, let's just see what we can accomplish with a little tinkering with Mother Nature." 


	3. A New Life

John Raintree emerged from the sealed room with a set of folders under one arm. Coming out of the basement of the Congress, the Special Intelligence Briefing room was one of the most electronically and physically protected locations in Washington DC against any form of eavesdropping. His expression was blank; one would never have known that he had just gotten bureaucratically ripped to shreds by the senators on the Metahuman Affairs Committee. _Ignorant short-sighted bastards,_ he raged quietly to himself. They had no idea the potential they had in their hands, and they were throwing it away, all in the name of political expediency. 

"Mr. Raintree," a voice called as he rounded the corner. 

"What can I do for you Bob?" Raintree asked. 

Senator Robert Arnold exited the sealed room along with the other senators of the committee. He and Raintree waited until the other senators had walked past them. "John, I want you to know that I don't entirely agree to the committee's decision." 

Raintree scowled. "It's not so simple as that Bob. The longer we wait, the more practice F67 gets on her own, the harder our task is going to be. And make no mistake; we will eventually have to find a way to bring her in. Either that, or she'll be doing the same to us." 

Arnold looked around to check that no one was hovering around. "Unfortunately, we aren't always the makers of policy in matters of this regard. The recent rash of school shootings has everyone tense about the topic. Even the President attended one of those public meet-and-greets assuring the public that the matter was a priority to him. The last thing we need is to look like the Gestapo rounding up a kid in public sight." 

"If I'm right about F67's potential, we won't need to worry about what the public sees or doesn't see ever again," Raintree emphasized. 

"I'm well aware of F67's potential," Arnold said as he shifted uncomfortably. "For myself, there are several...issues that are bothering me that someone like her could make go away." 

"Then give me the authorization to get F67 back," Raintree stressed. 

Arnold hedged. "According to our information, she was recently cleared of murder charges, pending confirmation of the confession from the real killers." He leaned forward. "I take it that Major Nichols won't be taking any advice to keep his mouth shut from our attorneys?" 

"Funny how that works out," Raintree mused coldly. "But consider this; we've just proven that we now have the capacity to compel total obedience to anyone we need. If a strong-willed man like Robert Nichols can be persuaded to confessing to double murder one, how much does it take to persuade the average Joe six-pack out there to...see things a little differently for certain touchy political issues we both know are concerning various members of the committee." 

"Be that as it may," Arnold warned. "We can't go sending in our direct assets into a school unprovoked. The last thing we need is another shootout at a public school; even worse, to have our own soldiers doing the shooting. You've already admitted that the assets necessary to bring F67 in involuntarily would amount to essentially waging a minor war." 

"We are at war Senator," Raintree said firmly. 

"And we can't be the ones seen to be starting it," Arnold replied then paused. "Now...if an incident were to break out on its own accord...perhaps if government assets were needed to defend the innocent civilians from a clear and direct threat? After all...what's more important to defend than the lives of our children?" Arnold added coyly. 

"What indeed?" Raintree agreed understandingly. 

Arnold looked at his watch, and then shrugged. "I have another matter that needs attending. But just so we understand each other...we can't have any unprovoked actions against F67, so long as she's on public school grounds. Are we clear?" 

Raintree smiled and nodded; it was good to finally meet a politician who understood how things really worked. "Quite clear." 

---

Angelina enjoyed her plate of eggs with gusto that surprised even her. Another annoying side effect the psychotropic suppression drugs had on her was killing her appetite by making everything taste like ash. On the other hand, the other big change now was being able to sense food molecules interacting with her own digestive system; and like sausage manufacturing, there was nothing like watching the process to kill the appetite. 

"You want some more juice Angie?" Laura Packard asked. 

"Yes Mrs. Packard," Angelina replied. 

"It's just so tragic what happened to your parents," Laura said sympathetically. "We were just devastated when we heard the news. I hope those crooks get what's coming to them." 

_I'm sure they will,_ Angelina thought. Chances were, the Project people weren't just going to let that case go through the public court system. And despite her youth, she wasn't naïve enough to think that she wouldn't be hearing from them again. She had to keep her guard up as much as possible, both for her own safety, and the safety of those around her. 

"Anyway," Laura continued, "I got a call from Child Protective Services. They say they're going to be sending someone out this afternoon to discuss your situation. But I want you to know that you're welcome to stay with us until they figure out what's going on." 

Angelina nodded then winced slightly as Laura put the orange juice away. She could feel a tightness and pain in Laura's fingers and hands as she lifted the pitcher. "Mrs. Packard, I didn't know you had arthritis." 

"What, this?" Laura asked as she glanced at her hands, and then shrugged resignedly. "Osteoarthritis runs in the family. Happens to all of us when we get older. It's not that bad." 

Angelina picked up her plate and carried it to the sink. "Do you mind if I try something?" She lightly touched Laura's hand, and concentrated. Inside her skeletal structure, Angelina could feel tiny microscopic spurs of calcium on the surfaces of the joints in Laura's fingers, wrists and arms. She then examined her own skeletal structure as a reference and carefully restored the smooth structure that had been there years before. As she did so, she lightly touched Laura's temple and willed her mind to cease feeling pain and stiffness from those particular nerve endings. "How's that feel?" 

"Better...much better..." Laura said hesitantly. She flexed her fingers and hands. "In fact, they feel wonderful," she said with surprise and wonder. "How on earth did you do that?" 

"Oh...you know...Far East Zen acupressure mumbo-jumbo," Angelina said dismissively with a smile. "Anyway, I've got to get ready for school." 

Laura Packard watched with stunned disbelief as Angelina disappeared up the stairs in the house. She flexed her fingers again. It wasn't just a momentary thing, she realized; her hands hadn't felt this good since her college days. She made a mental note to talk to her doctor about it the next time she had a physical. 

---

Madelyn Packard silently congratulated herself as she put her sketchbook away. She didn't know if Angelina was actually going to follow through or not, but heck, she told herself, it didn't hurt to be prepared. And so what if the sketch was a little risqué; most superheroine outfits had a little sex appeal to them. It was part of their charm. 

"Hey Maddie," Angelina said as she phased through Madelyn's bedroom door. 

Madelyn yelped in surprise and fell out of her chair. "How did you do that?" she gasped. 

"Molecules are mostly empty space," Angelina explained. "Mike also said there's probably a ton of other stuff I could do if I put my mind to it." 

"Mike talks too much," Madelyn huffed as she picked herself up. 

"Well, he did say I should practice my powers before I, in his words, 'go Chernobyl on everyone.' Speaking of which, what exactly do you think you're doing up here?" 

"Nothing," Madelyn evaded before wilting to Angelina's gaze. "You know, that mind reading stuff takes all the mystery out of life." 

Angelina made a gesture and Madelyn's notebook appeared in her hand. "Hey, that's mine!" Madelyn reached for the notebook, only to suddenly levitate into the air out of reach while Angelina leafed through the sheets of paper. "Oh my God...I'm going to blow up!" 

"You're not going to blow up," Angelina deadpanned. "I told you, I've been practicing. Give me some credit." She flipped through a few sketches before stopping on an illustration of a skin-tight outfit with stiletto-heeled thigh boots and gloves and shook her head. "Where on earth did you think this up? A Victoria Secret's S&M catalog?" 

"It's...supposed to be sexy," Madelyn shrugged as she floated in the air. "Can I come down now?" she beseeched. 

Angelina glanced at Madelyn and willed her back to the ground. Madelyn immediately began to pat herself along her chest, arms and shoulders. 

"What are you doing?" Angelina asked tiredly as she put the notebook away. "We're supposed to be getting ready for school." 

"Just...making sure all my...Tinker toys are where they belong," Madelyn asked in a flustered manner before regaining her composure. "That felt so weird. It didn't feel like being lifted; it was like all my insides were floating too. About the costume, you know, I was gonna show you when I was done. Those are just preliminary." 

"Maddie, I'm not a superhero," Angelina shook her head resignedly. "Think about it; if I start parading around publicly showing off, then the government's gonna come after me even more, and start threatening people like you and Pete and your folks. What's more, everyone in town's gonna know about me." 

"That's what a superhero costume is for; to protect your secret identity," Madelyn defended. "Besides, you can't save the world wearing a tee shirt and tennis shoes. It's not fashionable." 

"Who says the world needs saving?" Angelina said, and then did a double take. "Fashionable? Since when is that important?" 

"Oh, look who's talking Miss 'can I borrow your jacket because my folks won't get me anything nice'," Madelyn replied smugly. As Angelina flushed with embarrassment, Madelyn continued, "I'll tell you what; you may be able to read minds, but you can't see the future." She paused. "Can you?" 

"No," Angelina groaned as she rolled her eyes. She could literally see the logic forming in Madelyn's mind but decided to let her finish it. 

"So I'll make you a bet: Pete says that there's been a rash of supervillain robberies and even a few where people are getting hurt. I say a month, tops, and something gonna happen where you're going to have to take some kind of action to save people. If I'm wrong and nothing significant happens in a month, then I'll toss the sketch and never bring the topic up again." 

Angelina sighed. A month, she told herself. What could possibly happen in a month? "Government conspiracy guys don't count," she hedged. 

Madelyn paused, and then nodded. "Deal. And if I'm right, you wear my sexy costume, no complaints. And since it's obvious you can fly if you do that levitate trick on yourself, we have to add a cape. All flying superheroes have capes." 

Angelina blinked in disbelief. "No they don't," she insisted. "Red Nova's a flyer and he doesn't have one," she added. 

Madelyn snorted. "Red Nova's outfit is, like, so yesterday. Besides, nothing's more superheroic than a long flowing cape." 

Angelina rolled her eyes. It was going to be a long month. 

---

Daniel Nunez checked the address on the mailbox as he pulled his car up to the curb. In the passenger seat, there were several folders containing files and pictures of the children he was supposed to check on that day. The new one that dropped on his desk this morning looked like a particularly tragic one. He shook his head sadly; poor kid. As a social worker for the Illinois Child Protective Services, he had seen his share of broken families and orphans, but you never got used to them. 

Daniel got out of his small car and walked up on the sidewalk. He was a tall, dark, good looking young man, and at twenty-six, still young enough to relate to many of the kids he had to find alternative housing for. Because of that, he ended up with many of the orphans who needed foster care. Kids of divorcees and custody disputes usually got referred to his older more grizzled co-workers. He hoped that he could find an agreeable resolution for this new girl Angelina Clancy. Having your parents murdered, and then having those lazy investigators immediately try and pin the murder on you without any motive or forensic investigation was enough grief for any young life, he decided as he rung the doorbell. 

"Can I help you?" Laura Packard asked as she looked through the door window. 

"Hello? I'm Danny Nunez, Child Protective Services," Daniel offered and displayed his credentials. 

"Just a moment," Laura said as she unlatched then opened the door. "We weren't expecting you until this afternoon, Mr. Nunez." 

Daniel shrugged and smiled. "One of my early morning visits cancelled on me and I was in the area. Is Angelina Clancy around?" 

Laura shook her head. "You just missed the girls. They left for school an hour ago. Won't you come in?" she offered. 

Daniel walked in and his trained eye appraised the residence. Lots of pictures, family decorations, and clean surroundings told him that the Packards kept a fairly good environment for their child. The fact that Angelina was in several of the visible photos didn't elude him. "Looks like you've known Angelina for quite a while," he brought up. 

Laura nodded and smiled. "Angie and Maddie have been friends for as far back as I can remember. They've spent a lot of time together. I know that we were shocked when we heard the news." 

Daniel nodded sympathetically. "You never get used to hearing stuff like that. But the best thing we can do for Angelina is to try and get her circumstances set up the best we can, so she can go forward with her life." 

Laura nodded. "If there's anything I can do to help..." 

"Did you know the Clancys very well?" 

Laura shook her head. "I met them a few times over the years, but they were very private people. They really didn't open up to other people in the community." 

"Any family, relatives that maybe can step forward to help?" 

"There were a few times during the afternoon that I saw other cars around their house. The people there though didn't look like relatives or family; they were more like government authorities or something. I remember asking myself at the time whether or not the Clancys were in any kind of trouble, but nothing ever came of it. Honestly, I was hoping that you would have some information that would help." 

Daniel leafed through his folder. "Unfortunately, my investigations haven't uncovered much either. I haven't been able to find any next-of-kin, relatives or family. I also can't verify any job or insurance information from either John or Mary Clancy." He shook his head. "It's weird; it's like the Clancys didn't exist at all. Even their house is owned by some holding company I've never heard of. I mean, I've been doing these cases for a couple years and this is the first time I've ever seen anything like it. I keep expecting Rod Sterling to show up and reveal that the house is made of cardboard and stuff like that." 

"Well, that doesn't sound very good at all." 

"Anyway, maybe Angelina herself knew something about her parents that could help me out. Do you know what time she's going to be back from school?" 

Laura thought about it. "I think she said this morning she was going to apply for a job at the BurgerMart on Walnut and Forest Lane near their school. If she doesn't get it, she'll probably be back around four o'clock. I think she probably will though; that place goes through kids like crazy, so they're always looking for people." 

Daniel took down some notes and nodded. "I'll do the best I can. But in the meantime, would it be too much trouble if she stayed here for at least a few more days while I try and get this all sorted out?" 

Laura shook her head. "I'm sure Maddie would love that. I'll have to check with my husband Roger; things are a little tight right now. I'm not sure we could afford to raise two children for the long term," she admitted. 

"I understand Mrs. Packard. I'll try and get things moving as best I can. In the meanwhile, I'll call my supervisor and also try and look into any kind of financial assistance the CPS can provide to make things easier for your family." 

---

Mark Weinstein walked through the offices of the Illinois Child Protective Services government building. As the supervisor for the district, it was his job to make sure that the wheels of government kept turning smoothly. How many kids actually got the help they needed, well, that was really not his business. In government work, it didn't pay to think too much about results, but to just concentrate on the process and hope that the results would come on their own. He walked into his office and paused before entering and closing the door. 

"So how was Washington, Mr. Raintree? And what can I do to get you to leave my office?" Mark asked. 

"Oh come now, Mr. Weinstein, is that any way to talk after all we've done together?" Raintree replied with a degree of sarcasm. 

Mark sighed and shook his head. "What is it you want this time? Another Project kid blow up another car?" 

Raintree shrugged. "Oh, nothing like that. Or at least, not yet anyway. No, for now, I just wanted to check on some of your personnel files. What can you tell me about Daniel Nunez?" 

Mark shrugged. "He just joined CPS a couple years ago. Degree in accounting and custody law. Single, good kid; dedicated. Could use a little more seasoning, but the children really like him." 

"So, you would call him a good man? Honest, trustworthy?" 

Mark turned back towards Raintree; he could tell when he was being probed. "What exactly is this about?" 

"I think he might be the perfect man to try and get Subject F67 back to us," Raintree offered with a smile. 

"F67..." Mark searched his memory. "You've had so many test subjects come through our offices; which one was that?" 

"Angelina McGee, later renamed Clancy, our single greatest success and failure." 

Mark blanched. "That girl who blew up an entire tactical assault battalion?" 

"Reports of that assault were a little exaggerated," Raintree offered. "It wasn't quite a battalion, and no one actually died." 

Mark shook his head. "No way. Danny's not trained for that kind of mission. He's just a social worker; he's not qualified. If you want F67 back, then send in a specially trained squad to handle it." 

"Trust me," Raintree replied gravely. "Angelina can not be 'handled'." 

"So what's Danny supposed to do? Serve her a subpoena? If F67 is anywhere near as powerful as I've heard, she'll see right through him and rip him to shreds." 

"Oh, I beg to differ..." Raintree insisted. "You see, if we sent in, as you put it, a specially trained squad to handle it, Angelina would see through them, and probably could rip them to shreds, as you so eloquently put it. So I believe this is a case where subtlety will have to succeed where our conventional methods can not. After all...it would seem that the easiest way to deceive a telepath is to make sure the person doing the lying doesn't himself know that he's lying." 

Mark frowned in silence for a few minutes then nodded. "What do you want from me?" 

---

Angelina stared at the finished quiz on her desk and did her best not to scream. She had concerns that it was going to be difficult to wean herself off the psychotropic suppression drugs, but the reality really began to hit her when she got close to the school. Having Mrs. Packard and her neighbors in her mind was tolerable; tuning out 1800 kids and teachers whispering all their thoughts was an exercise in futility. Only the overall mood of boredom among the students and faculty was keeping the emotional stress to a manageable level. It was taking all the concentration she could muster for her mind not to just shut down and veg out for the whole day. Of course, she knew she could make the pain go away by simply taking over a few people's minds and letting the resulting euphoria soothe the pain away, but she promised herself that she wasn't going to do that to people without a good reason. 

Angelina looked back at her quiz. _During the War of 1812, when was the Battle of the Thames?_ By the time she finished reading the question, _October 5, 1813_ had been shouted into her mind nearly twenty times, including her teacher. A few others were shouting _March 27, 1814_ but they were so much in the minority Angelina didn't even need to study her material to know they were probably wrong. It was like playing "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" with unlimited lifelines, and it was driving her crazy. The only thing missing was Regis Philbin asking if those were her final answers. 

Just then, the overhead fluorescent lights began to flicker and the pencils and chalk near the teacher began to roll and vibrate. As students began to look around, Angelina buried her head in her desk and squeezed her eyes closed. She was getting bored of the easy quiz and frustrated at the non-stop voices in her head and her mind was beginning to wander. _Concentrate_ she told herself. _Focus on the inked paper in front of you._ In her mind, she could feel the atoms all around the classroom and surrounding building. She couldn't simply order them to stop; Michael had warned her that atoms had to stay in constant random motion; it was the basis of energy and heat. Make them stop and everyone in school would be killed, she suddenly realized. Even a tiny slip and a lot of people were going to get hurt and the school would probably blow up or turn into tapioca pudding or something silly. _Leave the other molecules alone...leave people's minds alone...make the ink atoms sticking on the paper do a little dance,_ she tried to tell herself. 

"Time," Robert Parr called out, right as the overhead fluorescent tube popped and blew out. "What the...?" he said as the other students looked up in wonder. Angelina trembled and hurriedly packed her books as the class bell rang. As she tried to get up, Robert called. "Angelina, can you come to my desk a moment?" 

_Uh, oh..._ Robert's mind already told her what she forgot to fix. How to explain it though, she wondered as she came up to his desk. 

"Angelina, what's this?" Robert asked as he showed Angelina her quiz. On the paper, the entire front of the page was decorated with an elaborate Spirograph design. "Is this supposed to be some kind of joke?" 

"Um... no, I...got distracted and began doodling a little and got carried away." _God, that sounds so lame..._

"Angelina, I know you're going through a difficult time, with your parents' passing and all. If you need some time off to get through the process, I understand. But you have to work through the principal's office for that kind of exemption. I can't accept papers like this." 

Angelina nodded shakily. "Yes Mr. Parr, I understand. It'll never happen again." 

As she left the classroom, she could feel emotional conflicts increasing. _God, what is it now,_ she wondered. A quick cursory glance at the thoughts in the area quickly told her that a fight was about to break out. _Poor Willie...what was it, third time this week?_ She never really paid much attention before when she was in a perpetual drugged state, but now she couldn't help but feel every minute detail. 

---

William Peterson grunted as he fell back against the lockers. A thin frail-looking freshman, he had somehow gotten on Howie Brown's bad side early on in the year and was paying for that almost every week. Then again, it didn't take much to get on Howie's shit-list, as the long line of persecuted geeks and nerds could attest to. 

"Come on Willie," Howie goaded. "I'll even let you take the first punch." 

"Leave me alone," William said as he tried to get away. 

Howie grabbed William and roughly pushed him against the lockers again, causing William's books to go scattering on the floor. A semi-circle of students had begun to form around the confrontation as onlookers cheered and jeered for one side or the other. 

"Wimp," Howie taunted as he slapped William across the face. It was more humiliating than painful, but it hurt all the same to Angelina as much as William's as his emotions threatened to boil over. 

"Just you wait, you pecker," William said angrily as he lashed out clumsily. 

Howie easily dodged the attack and pushed him back against the wall. "Ohh...!" he grinned evilly. "Geek's got spirit after all," he mocked as he egged the crowd to his side. 

"Hey, leave him alone," Angelina softly ordered as she stepped in. 

"Oh...Willie's got a girlfriend," Howie mocked. "Who's gonna make me?" he challenged. 

Angelina trembled as the tempting answer _I am, so bow down and beg forgiveness_ flitted briefly through her mind, along with a hundred other equally humiliating apologies before she quickly quashed them. She shook her head; _He's not worth it; just leave him be._ She turned around and helped William pick up his books. Behind her, Howie entertained thoughts of continuing the brawl, but decided that punching girls just didn't look like a popular thing to do. 

"Here you go Willie," Angelina offered as she handed some of William's books back to him. 

"Thanks," William muttered, and then looked up at Angelina and smiled a little. "Really, thanks. No one ever really stood up to Howie before." 

Angelina nodded and trembled a little. With the emotional stress beginning to trickle back down, the pressure on her mind was starting to slack off. "You should report him to the teachers," she suggested. 

"At this school?" William retorted. "Who'd care?" 

"Well, I got to head to lunch," Angelina said, doing her best to hide her dread. The lunchroom cafeteria was the most crowded part of the school during the lunch rush. 

"Wait," William urged. "Can I...like...see you...maybe...after school?" 

"I...got someplace I have to be," Angelina hedged. "With my folks...well, you know..." 

"Oh yeah, right..." William offered sympathetically. "But...you'll still be around in class, right?" 

Angelina shrugged as she headed away. "Yeah...sure." There was a slow tingle of emotion in the back of her mind that was building up in William's thoughts. She briefly thought about probing deeper to figure out what he was thinking, but was interrupted by the growing tide of voices in the lunchroom. She began to pant and clutch her head. It was like the worst migraine headache in the world and it was getting worse. Students always got more excited during the lunch hour and the voices and emotions were beginning to drown her in a sea of thoughts. Her books dropped to the ground as she collapsed to her knees. A group of students look on with curiosity but then the carpet began to smoke as overhead lights in the area began flickering and sparking. 

"What the hell...?" several students asked as they looked around. 

"Someone get the nurse!" another student called. 

As activity continued to build, hairline cracks began to form on the cinderblock walls. Amid the growing chaos, Madelyn came running from the crowd and forced her way to Angelina as she trembled on the ground. "Oh my God... Angie, pull yourself together!" she whispered fearfully. 

Angelina managed to look at Madelyn and shook her head. She didn't know if she had it in her to recover. 

"Listen to me!" Madelyn whispered rapidly and fearfully. "Mom packed carrots for lunch! I hate carrots! Make me eat my carrots!" 

Angelina shook her head. "I can't..." 

_"Angie, you need to!"_ Madelyn thought as loudly as she could. _"I know you don't like playing with people's minds, but making me eat my vegetables is a lot better than turning the whole school into a crater!"_

Angelina trembled but then began to visibly calm down. As Madelyn helped her pick her books up, she glanced at her lunch bag. She was suddenly starving for her vegetables; something she never thought would have happened. The two of them managed to make their way to an empty lunch table as students continued to look at the burnt out lights and smoke. 

As they sat down, Madelyn saw Peter coming up to them from the crowd surrounding the damaged lights. She anxiously dug through her lunch bag and took one bite of the orange stalks before rolling her eyes with pleasure. They still tasted like carrots, but now that was more succulent than the best chocolate truffle she ever had. 

Angelina buried her head in her hands as Madelyn wolfed down the last stalks in her bag and looked for more. "I gotta find another way..." Angelina whispered in despair. "I just can't keep doing this. I feel like such a...vampire...sucking your brains like that." 

"Zombies," Peter interjected playfully. "Zombies suck brains." He grinned until he saw Angelina's annoyed expression. "Sorry," then turned serious. "I take it the hallway melting down was Angie?" 

"I think it's just shoddy maintenance, don't you?" Madelyn replied meaningfully. "Do you have any carrots?" she added hopefully. 

Peter shook his head. "Protein bar, granola, nuts, raisins, sandwich. And don't you usually try to pawn your vegetables off to someone else?" 

"What can I say, tastes changes," Madelyn said. "You doing better now Angie?" 

Angelina nodded. "Probably for another five to ten minutes before it wears off. I've gotta talk to Mike about it when he gets back. Maybe he can come up with a better solution." 

"Yeah, where is Brainiac anyway?" Madelyn asked. 

"Academic decathlon, remember?" Peter reminded her. "Tri-district tournament today and this weekend." 

"Gah...that's right, it's Friday," Madelyn remembered. "So, getting ready for the big game tonight?" Madelyn asked Peter. 

Peter shrugged. "What's to get ready for? Holding the clipboard all night? Oh, and Angie, thanks for..." he squirmed before continuing, "zapping my folks the other night. It sure made it a lot easier than having to explain to my old man where I was all night." 

Angelina nodded reluctantly. "I'm already asking you to keep my secret, so I really can't go asking you to lie to your parents for me too." 

"So what's this I hear about you joining BurgerMart?" Peter asked as he started eating his lunch. 

Angelina shrugged. "Well, with my quote-unquote parents no longer around, I've got to find a way to support myself somehow." 

"I heard from a number of kids who used to work there who say that place sucks to work for," Peter warned. 

"You know Angie..." Madelyn said, "now that you're not constantly drugged, maybe you should join a club or something instead. Find something more fun than some dead-end job. You know my folks aren't going to kick you out just because you aren't tossing in minimum wage into the till." 

"I know, but..." Angelina said remorsefully, "it wouldn't be right for me to just sponge off them without at least making an effort." 

"Well, just between us, I think it's commendable that you're trying like that," Peter said. "I mean, most people... if they could do even a fraction of what you can do, they wouldn't think twice about robbing everyone in sight and screw what people thought about them." 

---

Gadgeteer nodded confidently as his electronic devices gave the green light. "Good to go!" 

Onyx shouted with glee as he smashed the safe door open. "That's what I'm talking about!" He looked inside and saw separate transparent domes containing the larger pieces of jewelry. They had been retracted from the upper floor where they were normally displayed. "Whisper, you're up!" 

The shy quiet girl stepped forward as Gadgeteer checked on his security devices and Onyx took time to keep the hostages in line. An African-American former gang member, Onyx's meta human gene activated when he hit puberty, which increased his strength and stamina to superhuman levels. After dominating the streets as a teenager, he had since found more worthy teammates and graduated to bigger pursuits. 

"Don't hurt us!" the jewelry shop owner begged. 

"Stay cool and you stay safe," Gadgeteer coldly said. He was a poor young man in the projects who found out the hard way that only wealth and connections really meant anything in this world. A few early criminal spots on his record had long ago frozen him out of any legitimate careers that would properly reward his uncanny expertise in weapons and technology. Well, if society wanted him to be a criminal, then he'd show them what a really smart crook could do. 

"Now!" Onyx ordered and roughly pushed Whisper forward. She looked at Onyx with an unfriendly glance, but then turned towards the reinforced transparent domes and opened her lips. The hostages cringed as the barely-audible whistle of sound issued forth. The domes began to vibrate and crack before finally shattering from the strain. As soon as the domes fell away, Onyx pushed past Whisper to greedily scoop the large pieces into his bags. 

_Bastard..._ Whisper thought to herself, but then fought to keep the emotions in check. _Don't forget you're doing this for Becky,_ she reminded herself. Growing up on the streets, she and her little sister Becky had done their best to try and stay clean and grow up and hopefully earn their way out of poverty. But a chance encounter with a truck carrying radioactive isotopes had changed all that when a fragment broke free from the traffic accident and lodged in her throat. Weeks of expensive and uninsured hospitalization later, she found her voice had been augmented to the point where talking any higher than a whisper caused destruction and pain to those around her. A local loan shark saw potential in her and arranged to pay for her hospitalization and basic training, and then introduced her to Onyx. Only later did Whisper find out about the price for all the help when a note was left at their little apartment. 

"You people in the store! You are completely surrounded," a voice suddenly interrupted on loudspeakers from outside the store. 

Gadgeteer glanced outside before ducking back behind cover. "Looks like they brought out the big guns Onyx." 

"Vortex, show'em what the sewers are for," Onyx said, as he got ready to charge out the door. 

"Gotcha!" Vortex said with a thumbs-up. He concentrated and mentally reached out to all the water running through the pipes through the building and under the streets. A normal kid until a greedy chemical plant decided to save money disposing its waste by dumping the toxic byproducts by an open sewer where Vortex and several neighborhood kids used to play. After a bout of illness, he discovered a mental kinship with water in all its forms, along with the ability to ride it through the air. Unlike Whisper, he had no problems throwing in his lot with a winner like Onyx. 

Outside, an assembled group of SWAT officers looked around nervously as the streets began to rumble. Before any of them could react, a powerful jet stream of sewage water burst from the manhole covers, covering the whole team with the stinky sludge. As the police officers recoiled in disgust and fell back from the oily water, Onyx burst from the front door of the jewelry shop. He bulldozed through the first SWAT van, destroying it in a single charge. 

Behind Onyx, Whisper opened her lips and sent several officers recoiling to the ground, writhing in pain from the sonic whistle. She consoled herself in the thought that at least those men would live, as opposed to the ones Onyx decimated and left broken and bleeding on the streets. 

Onyx then took the decimated van and tossed it into the phalanx of officers as some of them managed to fire a few sporadic shots, which bounced off Onyx's body. "Let's get outta here," Onyx ordered. Not that he really feared these chump cops, but he was anxious to fence the loot they had successfully stolen. 

Vortex reached out again and mentally gathered the pools of water around the area and willed them to freeze solid. Gadgeteer, Onyx and Vortex each proceeded to get onto them as they lifted off like improvised flying carpets while Whisper propelled herself through the air with a powerful thrust of sound. 

As they left, Gadgeteer shot a weapon several times, landing several pods onto the police cars. As the police got into their cars to give chase, the pods came to life and sent a powerful current into the car body, disrupting the distributor cap timers to the cars. Each car managed to lurch forward briefly before the engines seized up and died, as the officers all cursed and called vainly for help before losing sight of the villains, who managed to get away once again. 

---

"Yo, Onyx, my man!" the loan shark congratulated as the foursome returned from their mission. 

"Piece o' cake," Onyx said smugly as he gave the loan shark a rough high-five. 

"Ow, shit man...!" the loan shark said as he shook his hand painfully. He knew though that Onyx was only kidding around being macho; if Onyx had really meant it, he could have reduced a normal man's hand to a messy dark red wet spot on the pavement. 

"Tip was right on d' money!" Onyx said. "Stuff was all there inside the vault just as you said!" 

"Would I ever steer you wrong?" the loan shark declared as the jewelry was passed to one of the loan shark's associate, who appraised the jewelry and nodded with satisfaction. "Yo man, I want you to meet someone!" the loan shark said as he led Onyx to the next room. 

"Mr. Onyx?" a new man asked as he introduced himself. 

"Who's the suit?" Onyx asked the loan shark with a derisive tone. The man had the stink of pig on him and Onyx distrusted anyone who looked like 'The Man'. 

"This is Mr. Smith," the loan shark said. "He says he wants to help us branch out. Says there's a special opportunity. He's offering a hundred Gs up front to do this one for us, plus half the take." 

"OK, I'm listening," Onyx said. Suit or no suit, that was serious cash even before the job. 

"There's a big football game in one of the suburbs tonight," Smith said. "You know the type; rich, spoiled, snobby suburb kids, with rich parents and fat lazy cops who are more used to school crossings than serious enforcement." He made it a point to pour on the venom when describing the targets as he knew they all had reasons to dislike those they perceived to be part of 'the system'. 

"We're gonna go after a school?" Whisper said softly but with shock. She had to control her volume, lest people here got hurt, and while she didn't really care what happened to Onyx, she didn't need to give these people an excuse to punish Becky. 

"Hey, I'm with that," Vortex said. "They probably got sprinkler systems all over the place. Gives me plenty to work with." 

"Indeed they do," Smith assured. "A real grass field. Like I said, too much money for their own good." 

"So we robbing or kidnapping?" Gadgeteer asked. "I'll need to adjust my gear." 

"Why not both?" Onyx said boastfully. "More money, less work!" 

"We'll get caught!" Whisper urged. Despite her best efforts, her voice was beginning to rise to dangerous levels. "Rich people get rich cops and they'll send superheroes after us!" 

"Hey, newsflash babe...!" Onyx leered confidently. "Ain't no one powerful enough to stop us in this town! Trust me; there ain't no superheroes within fifty miles of that place!" 

---

"Welcome to BurgerMart, how can I help you?" Angelina asked with cheerfulness that she didn't really feel. 

"Ah...I'll have a number one large combo, a Coke, and an apple pie," the customer ordered. 

Angelina glanced down and sighed as the keyboard indicated that she had already telepathically read the customer's mind, and then telekinetically keyed the order in advance. She had to be more careful, lest someone saw her doing that. "That'll be $7.52," she replied. 

The BurgerMart was only half full as the afternoon had just begun and the dinner rush hadn't started yet. It had been known to be a popular hangout for the students though due to its proximity to the school. Angelina had heard it was easy to get a job here, and it didn't take her long to figure out why the turnover was so high. 

"So, how are you doing," Gary Cade said as he put his arm around Angelina's shoulder. He was the long-time manager at BurgerMart, and ran the place like his own little fiefdom. Even if she couldn't read his mind, Angelina probably would have disliked him on principle, but now she didn't have much choice. "Figuring things out? Learning the ropes?" 

Angelina nodded. "Yes Mr. Cade, I think I'm getting it." 

"Well, things will start picking up in about an hour, so use this slow time to figure out the way we do things," he said with just a touch of condescension that was much more obvious in his mind than his voice. 

She nodded. "I'm sure I'll figure things out as they happen." After he left, Angelina turned her attention back to the cash register, and then groaned inwardly. 

"Angie, hey...um...I wanted to say thanks again about today," William said as he came up to the order counter. 

"Um... Willie, I'm working?" she quietly urged. "Can we talk later?" 

"Oh right," he realized. "Um... I'll just be... over there..." 

_Oh boy..._ Angelina realized as she began to see what she had missed earlier when her telepathy was being overwhelmed by the lunch crowd. William's mind was already beginning to form fantasies about her. She hadn't really meant to lead him on; she just wanted the fight with Howie stopped, as much for her own peace of mind as William's dignity. _Why not just...fix it..._ a nagging little voice inside her head whispered. _Wouldn't that be so much easier, not to mention kinder than leading him on with ideas of a romance that just wasn't going to happen?_

She trembled; that was a dangerous train of thought to be entertaining, she realized. _Willie bothering you? Just make him go away. That twerp Howie thinks he's so big? Make him grovel and beg. Pete thinks of me as just a friend? Why not make him really love me?_ And what about Madelyn? What would she think? _Who cares what she thinks..._ the same little voice urged. _Just change what she thinks as easy as you changed her taste in carrots._

_Oh my God... what am I doing even thinking thoughts like this...?_ she abruptly realized. She had to stop; idle thoughts, desires, even emotional whims like that were dangerous to everyone around her. 

"Hey Angie," Maddie said as she came up to the order counter and began to giggle. "Oh my God... you look so cute in that orange uniform..." she said playfully. "I'm gonna have to add some to my sketch." 

"No... orange..." Angelina replied adamantly. _"Skin-tight black leather's bad enough; I'm not wearing neon day-glow orange,"_ she added telepathically. 

Madelyn shrugged with disappointment and shrugged. "So how's the first day on the job?" 

"Terrific," Angelina replied sarcastically. "I don't know what's worse... a boss who thinks that putting me up front for sex-appeal is good for business or that he might be right with all the boys undressing me in their minds." 

"Angie, with your bod, guys probably have been thinking of undressing you in their dirty little minds way before you became...you know..." 

"Well, at least before, I didn't have to see it." 

"Oh, Angie... I need you to do something for me..." 

Angelina blinked, and then blushed. "Oh my God...I'm sorry, I didn't realize..." 

"I've been thinking of nothing but carrots all afternoon," Madelyn sheepishly admitted. "I'm practically drooling about having them sautéed for dinner." 

Angelina made a subtle gesture. "It was supposed to be a one-time deal," she apologized contritely as she reached into Madelyn's mind a made a few adjustments. "How's that?" 

Madelyn thought about it for a moment. "Can't tell. I'll let you know next time I see a carrot." 

"Just a sec," Angelina said as she reached into the condiment drawer and fished out a packet of ketchup. She telepathically checked to make sure no one else was watching, and then concentrated on the packet in her hand, before handing a carrot to Madelyn. 

"Oh my God... how did you do that...?" Madelyn asked with astonishment. 

"I'm not really sure," Angelina admitted. "Sometimes, I can do things on instinct. It's like... I already know what a carrot looks like molecule-wise because I've seen and handled them before. I did it once before when I turned an ashtray into a ham sandwich." 

Madelyn took the carrot, nibbled on it, and then spat it out into a napkin. "Yup, back to normal. So are you gonna come to the game tonight?" 

"I can't," Angelina replied sadly. "For one, I'm probably going to be working through the dinner shift. And second, I...don't have anything to wear." 

"Oh, no..." Madelyn wagged her finger. "You don't get to play that excuse any more Miss Molecule Girl. Besides, even if you couldn't turn tee shirts into silk gowns, it's a high-school football game. Who cares what you wear?" 

"I...also don't think I could handle the crowds," Angelina admitted. "Unless you want to start eating turnips and beets that is," she added slyly, then paused. "My social worker's coming." 

"Where?" Madelyn asked as she looked around. 

Angelina closed her eyes briefly. "He's pulling up Josie and Walnut now." 

"That's three blocks away," Madelyn said with amazement. "How far can you go these days anyway?" 

"He's thinking specifically of me. That makes it easier," Angelina explained. 

"Well, no surprise birthday parties for you, I see," Madelyn snorted. 

They waited a few minutes as Angelina continued to take orders at a slow pace. After a dozen more customers had passed through, Angelina paused and stepped away from the keyboard. "I need to take a break Mr. Cade. My social worker's here." 

Gary nodded. "Kim, can you take over station one?" 

As the workers rotated, Daniel came into the restaurant. Madelyn glanced over to the entrance, guided by Angelina's cues. _"Wow... what a hunk..."_

_"Easy Maddie, he's twenty-six,"_ Angelina reminded her. 

_"That's only twelve years difference,"_ Madelyn playfully protested. _"I think I need a social worker too."_

_"He's got a girlfriend already,"_ Angelina sighed as she walked up to Daniel. "Hello Mr. Nunez, I'm Angelina." 

"Oh hey," Daniel replied with a smile and a handshake. "How'd you recognize me anyway?" he added with a puzzled look. 

"Oh, um...Mrs. Packard told me you were looking for me, and ... you are wearing a suit in a BurgerMart." 

Daniel shook his head and chuckled. "A regular Nancy Drew, huh? Well, if you have some time, I'd like to go over your case." 

---

Daniel finished his initial presentation of Angelina's situation, though she already heard it in his mind before he started. _Great...not only were my folks government agents assigned to keep me drugged, they didn't leave me a dime to my name..._ At this point, she would be lucky to have the legal permission to even go back to the house to pack her clothes. 

"...so anyway, I was hoping that you would know something that maybe didn't show up in the legal work," Daniel said as he summed up. "Did they tell you anything? A safety deposit box or an attorney to contact maybe?" 

Angelina sighed and shook her head. "No, nothing like that I'm afraid. My parents and I...well, we didn't get along very well in the last few years. I really didn't know much about them..." _That's for sure..._ she didn't add. 

"Listen," Daniel said sympathetically. "You're not the first kid I've worked with who didn't have a life insurance policy. The government has safety net programs to help kids who need support. We're gonna find you a good home to help you get on with your life. If you like living with the Packards, we can provide enough financial support where you won't be a burden. Or if you prefer, I'll work on finding you another solution, whichever you want." 

Angelina nodded and smiled. She was greatly relieved to find no sign of a hidden agenda in Daniel's mind. She had gotten so used to thinking of the government as her enemy, it was a refreshing change to find an honest civil servant. "Thanks Mr. Nunez. And I'd like to stay with the Packards for as long as they'll have me." 

"Call me Danny. Everyone else does," Daniel said with a smile, then handed Angelina a card. "I'll get things rolling from the government's side. Meanwhile, if you have any questions, I want you to call me, day or night." 

---

Farmer Village High stadium was surprisingly large for a high school stadium. There was comfortable seating for 15,000; it was also a popular venue for other local events like band, cheerleader, and flag corps competitions. Madelyn waved as she saw Pamela at the concession stands. 

"Maddie, I haven't seen you for a few days. Where'd you guys all go?" Pamela asked. 

"Well, some things have happened," Madelyn said. 

"Yeah, I was wanting to ask you, what the hell was going on? Angie's a suspect for murder?" Pamela asked incredulously. 

"No, she was cleared," Madelyn insisted. She thought carefully about how to phrase her words. The last thing she needed was a gossip like Pamela to know about Angelina's secret. "It turns out some gang of robbers broke in and shot Angie's folks." 

"Oh gee, what a bummer," Pamela said. "So where's she staying anyway? With you?" 

Madelyn nodded. "Yeah, at least until they figure out if she has any other family around." 

"Oh, hey, can you, like, not tell her I said she was a suspect? I don't want her to think I was saying bad stuff about her." 

Madelyn shrugged and nodded, but did her best not to snort. _Don't tell Angie...yeah right...good luck with that..._ BurgerMart was only four streets away; good money said Angelina already heard Pamela's little indiscretion. "Listen, I gotta go get ready." 

"Good luck band girl," Pamela said playfully. 

Madelyn smiled and headed back to the growing crowd of colorfully uniformed members of the marching band. On the way there, she passed by a maintenance man, who was working on the stadium lights breaker box. She idly wondered what it would be like to have those big lights fail in the middle of the halftime show but put it out of her mind. Those kinds of things never really happened. 

---

"Packages are in place," Gadgeteer said quietly into his communicator as he finished working on the stadium breaker box. He pulled out a remote control and pressed a button and was rewarded with a blinking green light. "I've got control of the stadium infrastructure." 

"We're ready," Onyx replied from behind the concession stands as he finished loading food from the carts to the stands. "We go right at halftime." The field would have the most people on it at that time and he didn't want to miss any late stragglers who were still arriving during the first quarter. 

---

Peter stood and listened as the coach talked to the starting quarterback Wade Johnson about the next set of plays as time ran down before the half. The visiting team had pushed them hard and held onto a three-point lead, but the home team had a chance to score before the half, taking much-need momentum into the locker room. As the backup quarterback, it was Peter's job to help keep a running log of plays both their team and the opposing defense was running in the hopes of discerning what combinations were working. It was also his responsibility to be physically and mentally ready to go into the game should the need arise. 

The whistle blew and the referees signaled to start the clock as Wade headed back onto the field. Peter nodded as Wade pulled the team out of the huddle into a shotgun spread formation. The visiting team's star defensive end was a ferociously powerful rusher who nonetheless had a weakness of biting on a fake and get out of position, and Wade was an exceptional runner for a quarterback. 

Meanwhile, on the sidelines, Madelyn and the rest of the marching band, flag corps and drill teams were already standing by the sidelines, getting into position for the halftime show. The drum major paced the lines of the formation, extolling the band to do their best. The cheerleaders jumped and led the crowd to cheer the home team on. On the field, all eyes were on Wade as he checked off and began the snap count. 

Suddenly the skylights turned off and the sprinkler systems began spraying the field with water. Isolated screams and various shouts and murmurs cut through the night. A second later, a bright flash emanated from the skylight towers and formed the top of a glowing translucent dome that quickly flowed to the ground level, sealing the stadium and surrounding grounds from the rest of the school. 

"What was going on...?" the whole stadium wondered all at once. There was isolated cursing and shouting, but the murmurs began to steady as various adults did what they could to organize their respective groups. In the press box, control personnel were anxiously working the switchboard in a vain attempt to restore power. 

Then without warning, a powerful sonic whistle pierced the air, causing everyone in the stadium to crumble to the ground in pain. Windows and glasses began shattering and the ground began to rumble. After a minute of agony, the whistle stopped and a booming voice issued forth from the stadium speakers. "That got your attention? Good!" Onyx then stepped forward and advanced to the middle of the field, flanked by Vortex and Gadgeteer. "You suckers have had it good for too long! Now it's time to share the wealth!" 

Suddenly, a group of football players surged forward, charging Onyx and his partners. Gadgeteer went down almost immediately, but Onyx quickly grabbed the players and tossed them aside like rag dolls. "You stupid bastards...!" he snarled angrily. "Vortex, show'em the penalty for fucking with us!" 

Vortex gestured and a large blob of water rose up from the super-saturated grass field and engulfed the first few players in a bubble of water. The players thrashed and choked as everyone else looked on in horror. After several seconds seemed to stretch to eternity, Vortex gestured again and the water receded back into the grass. 

"That was a warning!" Onyx said harshly. "Next chumps who try anything won't be so lucky!" 

Gadgeteer picked himself up, gave some of the downed players a swift kick, and then took the microphone. "Here's our list of demands...!" 

---

"Two number one large combos, number three combo medium, BLT sandwich, three Cokes, apple pie, and two cones, that'll be $16.42," Angelina said tersely as she keyed the order into the touch pad. Behind her, the kitchen was alive with activity preparing food for four separate checkout counters and the drive-through. Even Gary Cade was actively working the floor, keeping an eye on supplies and occasionally taking an order. 

The customer stood aside to wait for his order as the next customer came up to the front of the line. Angelina started to ask him for his order when she suddenly began to hear screaming. She shook her head and looked around. No panic in the restaurant; the only reason to scream here was the sub-standard food. _Telepathic screams,_ she realized. Her mind was alive with flashes of fear, anger and panic. _Oh my God,_ she realized, _the school stadium...Maddie and Pete are at that game...!_

_"...and don't no more of you fools get any stupid ideas about bein' a hero!"_ Angelina could hear a tall powerful-looking man say menacingly to the crowd. In her mind, she could see four of them, all of them using meta powers. What's more, they seemed to have the whole stadium surrounded by a powerful force wall. Angelina could sense police already enroute, but none of them were meta-human equipped. 

"Excuse me Miss, we're ready to order?" the customer interrupted, jerking Angelina mentally back to the restaurant. 

"I have to go," Angelina whispered and left the counter. She headed to the back of the restaurant as the rest of her co-workers and some customers wondered where she was going. 

"Hey Angelina," Gary Cade said with surprise as he followed her to the back of the restaurant. "Where are you going? Now's not the time to take a break," he said firmly. 

"I'm sorry about this Mr. Cade," Angelina said as she mentally reached into his mind, _"but I have to leave. You're going to accept that and cover for me."_

"I understand," Gary nodded obediently as he walked calmly back to the front of the restaurant. "I'll have someone cover for you." 

Angelina sighed as Gary walked away. _It's an emergency,_ she told herself; _it's not the same thing as abusing people's minds,_ her conscience insisted, before turning her attention to other matters. _Maddie, I guess you win the bet..._ she thought before she phased through the back wall of the restaurant. 

In the alleyway behind the restaurant building, Angelina looked around visually and telepathically to make sure she wasn't being watched. "Oh my God...I can't believe I'm doing this..." she muttered as she focused her concentration on the molecules of her clothes. Instantly, they began to flow and reshape themselves into a skin-tight shiny black and silver outfit that hugged every curve on her body. Her body began to lift off the ground as the flowing black cape swirled behind her. _Maddie wasn't kidding; it does make my insides feel funny when I fly..._ She took a moment to look at the results. _Wow,_ she thought. She almost hated to admit it, but Maddie was right; it was sexy. It felt almost sensual against her body. Of course, the drawback was this outfit didn't hide a single pound. If she was really going to be wearing this, then she may as well kiss donuts goodbye forever. 

_OK, take it easy, one step at a time,_ Angelina told herself. Her telepathy was keeping her apprised of the events at the stadium and surrounding area in real time. The euphoric buzz she got from zapping Mr. Cade would keep her head clear for at least a little while. Her molecular powers projected a force field around her that should protect her from anything those metas could throw, based on their thoughts and memories of their own powers. Now she just had to figure out how to... 

"Waaah...!" she shouted with fear and ecstasy as she rocketed up into the air at unbelievable speed. In a blink of an eye, she was already far above and outside the city limits. By the time she managed to gasp a breath, she was already leaving the atmosphere. _Stop, stop!_ she urged herself as she finally slowed to a hover. _OK, molecules, let's try that again at not quite maximum speed then,_ she thought. She was lucky that she had total control of her body's molecules and the air pocket around her or the acceleration and deceleration would have probably smeared her into red mist or the vacuum would have killed her from suffocation and decompression. 

She looked down and almost lost herself in the view of the planet below her. For the first time ever, she didn't think of her powers as a curse. The view was so breathtaking, she began to understand Peter's and Madelyn's obsession with superheroes. _I'm going to have to come back up here when time isn't of the essence,_ she told herself, then turned her attention back to the matter at hand. 

_OK, back down now,_ she willed. She couldn't go too fast or she'd end up plowing herself into the ground, and she wasn't completely sure if her powers would protect her from that. But she didn't have time to go slowly now; her initial jolt into space meant she would have to fly swiftly to get back to the stadium in time to matter. She fixed her attention to her hometown and headed down. Slowly at first, then picking up speed as she gained more confidence. _OK world... get ready for..._ She paused. _Oh my God... I don't even have a superhero name...how lame is that?_ She sighed...maybe she'd come up with one after she saved her friends. 

---

Outside the stadium, a ring of police, SWAT and emergency vehicles were establishing a perimeter. "It's no good sir," the lead police reported back to the commander. "It's some kind of high-energy force field. The tech guys say it's tapping directly into the city's electrical grid that powers the stadium and it's powerful enough to repel anything we've got." 

"The negotiator's online with them. They're asking for $100,000 per kid in there. They say the money's to be wired to an off-shore account in two hours or they start randomly executing them one by one every five minutes. They also say that if we try to cut the city grid, they'll kill everyone they can and take off." 

"Any word from those helicopters?" the chief of police asked. 

"The choppers have ID'd the four perps. It looks like the same super powered gang who's been hitting banks and jewelry stores downtown the last few months," the squad commander reported. 

"Looks like they've decided to upgrade," the SWAT commander growled. 

"We're flying in some personnel from the downtown precincts to hopefully get some expertise, but this gang's never been close to being caught. We've managed to contact the Dark Saviors and they're enroute now, but they won't be here for at least an hour, maybe more." The squad commander shook his head and sighed. "It doesn't look good." 

_Parents are going to be going crazy..._ the chief of police realized to himself. _And you're the lucky bastard who's going to have to go in front of those cameras to tell the world that 15,000 kids and school teachers are going to die._

---

Onyx watched with leering satisfaction as bags were being passed throughout the crowd, ordering everyone to drop their wallets, purses, jewelry, and other valuables for collection. Gadgeteer had deployed some mobile-armed drones to help with enforcement, and so far, their demonstration had borne fruit. There were no more foolish displays of bravado. In fact they were so successful in keeping the crowd cowed, Onyx was getting bored. 

"Hey sweet thing!" Onyx said as he grabbed the nearest cheerleader. "I'll be your parents would pay extra to get you back!" 

The cheerleader screamed as Onyx tore her blouse open. 

"Stop it!" Peter said. 

"Enough!" Whisper hissed. "We're getting the money and this isn't helping!" 

"You mind your place!" Onyx snarled to Whisper as he loosened his grip on the cheerleader. 

Peter suddenly charged forward and managed to tackle the cheerleader out of Onyx's loosened grip. But before he could pull her back, Onyx roughly grabbed him from behind. "Ohh...now that's more like it," he said with satisfaction. 

"I always hated jocks when I was a kid," Gadgeteer said menacingly as he pointed a gun at Peter's head. 

"I'll bet I could have made a good jock," Onyx sneered as Peter struggle in vain against Onyx's grip. "Watch me make this forward pass!" With one powerful swing, Onyx hurled Peter into the air as other students around them gasped and cried. "Well, damn," he laughed, "I guess we won't be getting our money for that guy!" 

---

Peter tumbled through the air as the field receded below him. He quickly came to the realization that the clichés were all true; his life really was flashing right before his eyes. At 100 feet, he could see all the childhood memories of throwing that little Nerf football with the neighborhood kids. At 200 feet, he was twelve, on his first hunting trip with his father. 300 feet; his first, and so far only, football victory just last year and the subsequent pride his parents yelling his name in the stands. 

The force wall was close now; he wondered if death was going to be instant or would he feel the crunching of his bones against the glowing surface. He kept his eyes open; he wouldn't give those creeps down there the satisfaction that he couldn't face death with his eyes open. Seconds seemed to drift and lengthen. _What the hell,_ he thought; did he misjudge the distance? The wall was still there, but it seemed to be slowing...slowing... His body began to feel weightless. Was he at the apex of the throw already? Did that creep misjudge his throw and now he'd just die on the ground instead of slamming into the wall? 

Finally, he blinked; this close to the wall, it was hard to see. A silhouette bathed in a white light seemed to be approaching from the outside. Before he knew what was happening, the shape slipped through the wall and drifted towards Peter as he finally came to a complete mid-air stop. 

"Hi Pete," Angelina said and smiled. "Sorry I'm late." 

---

"Who the hell is that?" the helicopter pilot said, as his co-pilot tried to get a better look with binoculars. "Base, this is Eagle-Eye One, we have another possible perp just flew into the target area at high speed. Target is air-mobile and has penetrated the force wall surrounding the combat zone." 

---

Peter gasped as he was gently turned around in mid air. "Angie..." he breathed, and then managed to weakly croak, "...nice costume..." 

"That was really brave," Angelina said with admiration. 

Peter shook his head and almost laughed as the adrenaline in his system began to taper off. "You can say stupid if you want." He then turned serious. "There's four of them. The big guy's really strong..." 

"Shh...I know," Angelina said with assurance. 

"Right," Peter nodded. "Mind reader, I forgot..." 

"I'm gonna put you with the cops, OK? Take care of yourself," Angelina said and gestured, and phased Peter through the force wall, and then levitated him gently to the police perimeter. 

"Kick ass, Angie," Peter replied as he phased through the wall. 

---

"Someone's up there!" Gadgeteer shouted. 

Onyx looked up; it was hard to see against the white glowing force field. He half-expected to see the red splatter against the wall, but that's not what Gadgeteer was pointing at. "Whisper, go check it out!" 

Whisper flew up towards the force wall and saw Angelina almost immediately. _A superhero, I knew it,_ she thought and opened up a sonic attack. The sonic bolt lanced out, only to dissipate when it came close to Angelina's force field. 

"What...?" Whisper uttered with surprise. 

_Thanks Mike,_ Angelina thought as she mentally grabbed Whisper's mind and body. Nothing easier than repeating successful tricks. 

"Get them both down!" Onyx ordered Gadgeteer as he saw Whisper go limp. _Dumb bitch must have dropped her guard and got caught like an amateur._

_Poor girl,_ Angelina thought. _She doesn't want to be here either. She's just doing this to protect her sister..._ Her thoughts were interrupted by a hail of bullets came flying up towards them both before freezing in mid-air. 

"Holy..." Gadgeteer exclaimed. "Did you see that?" 

Onyx fumed with frustration. And it was going so well. "Drown her!" he ordered Vortex, and then turned back towards Gadgeteer. "Start strafing the crowd! We'll make a few examples out of them to punish her for interfering!" 

Vortex raised both arms as a wave of water rose up from the soaked field and surrounded Angelina in mid-air. He then furrowed his brow and gritted his teeth. "Come on... drown, damn you!" 

Angelina looked at the water as it tried to close in on her. She could feel the psychic pressure on the water molecules, but holding them back was a trivial mental effort. Hopefully she could defeat them before someone got hurt. 

"Units 1 through 3, open fire," Gadgeteer ordered the drones, which proceeded to line up their weapons and power up. 

_Uh oh._ Angelina thought and willed the bullets to stop in mid-flight. _Better wrap this up quick._

The guns began firing and the bullets froze in mid-air. But as the guns fired, the crowd began to panic and run. Angelina winced and crumbled as she grabbed her temples. Around her, the water began to vaporize into its component gases and the stadium stands began to crack. 

"Not so tough now, are you?" Onyx said menacingly as he leaped up and grappled Angelina. He tried to squeeze, but growled as he found his efforts foiled by the field of static molecules surrounding Angelina. 

Around the stadium, the crumbling stands caused more panic as students, parents and teachers tried to run for the exits. Angelina cried out as the pain from the overwhelming emotions and panicked thoughts threatened to overwhelm her. The mental support she got from tapping Gary Cade's mind had worn off. She needed to grip someone else's mind or she wouldn't be any good to anyone. 

"You see that?" Onyx snarled. "Once we take care of you, we'll finish off all these losers!" 

_Fine, you'll do nicely,_ Angelina thought as she reached into Onyx's mind. _"Release me!"_

Onyx suddenly dropped Angelina and fell back to the ground as his arms went limp. "What the...?" 

_"On the ground and go to sleep, all of you!"_ Angelina mentally ordered Onyx, Gadgeteer and Vortex as she reached out to the students as they struggled from the crumbling stands. As her mind began to clear, she then mentally reached out to the crowd and projected a soothing calm into their minds to restore order and quell the panic. 

As the students began to lift off the ground to safety from the crumbling stands, unnoticed by everyone, the hydrogen gas drifted up into the shattered skylights. Before anyone could react, the lights began to spark. 

Instantly, the hydrogen ignited. The flash caught everyone's attention and Angelina quickly willed a barrier to form around the students she levitated to the field as the stadium stands finally collapsed. The fire spread to the surrounding structure in the press box and scoreboards. Fueled by the excess oxygen in the air, the flames began to spread like wildfires. 

_Oh no, what now...?_ Angelina thought with despair as she reached out to the air molecules around the growing fire. _Slower...slower..._ She knew she couldn't just stop them completely, or she'd end up freezing people to death. As the fires finally began to die down, she looked around with dejection. _Oh my God... what a mess I made..._

---

"The force field's down!" the front-line police reported. 

"All units move in!" the SWAT commander ordered. 

There was a hard push to rush in. Everyone had seen the pyrotechnics inside and parents feared the worst. Inside the stadium, the spectators looked around and several pointed up to the floating figure above them. Angelina could sense the confusion of their thoughts that was still there despite her telepathic soothing. Further out, she could sense the impending hostility from the approaching police and fire fighters. _And why wouldn't they be hostile? They think you just blew up the stadium on purpose._ She shook her head; what could she even say to them? She did her best and this was the result? _Some hero I turned out to be,_ she thought sadly and flew off at high speed. She just wasn't ready to face an audience for this debacle. 

---

Raintree watched the footage from the grainy shaky cameras. Unfortunately, being only a high-school game, professional media wasn't available. Behind him, Jeffery Smith shook his head. 

"Honestly, I thought they'd do better than that." 

"Against F67?" Raintree scoffed. "They're lucky to be alive." 

"Not that I'm questioning your actions sir," Smith said, "but weren't we going to send in some forces to try and acquire F67 since she could have visibly have been perceived to be a direct threat to others?" 

"I had thought about it," Raintree said. "But realistically right now, we can't deploy sufficient forces to have much of a chance, given our restrictive rules of engagement and limited resources. I had hoped that she would have accidentally killed someone, but things don't always work out that way. Fortunately, she did enough collateral damage that I'm sure we can spin that to our advantage. Once our media agents get word out how dangerous she was to the innocent children, I'm sure that we will have no problems getting the resources necessary to bring her in once and for all." 

---

The black ship landed; it was as bigger than a fighter jet and looked more like a science fiction shuttle. There were no markings on it anywhere. A doorway appears on one side and a humanoid stepped out onto the asphalt. The press began to take pictures and try and get his attention. The black hilted sword over his right shoulder added to his mystery; as far as anyone knew, he had never used it. Several police officers walked over to him. 

"Red Nova?" one of them asked? 

The figure nodded, then spoke. The silvery mask distorted his voice and the glowing purple eyes gave him the appearance of some kind of insect. "I got here as soon as I could. The rest will be here if needed. Who's in charge?" he asked. 

The officers took him to where the four Meta humans were laid out. Without skipping a beat, he pulled out a device as purple energy washed over each of them. "You want me to take custody?" he asked. 

"We have a team en route to take custody. We're still looking for the fifth Meta," the police officer said. 

Red Nova ignored him and examined some of the electronics that were being removed from the lighting system. He then went out into the field and began looking around. He picked up several items from the field and brought them back to one of the officers. "Something...not sure what...have your people examine it and forward a copy to the East Coast Meta human database." He dropped several pieces of what looked like crystal into a bag. Upon closer inspection, they were bugs made of some kind of glass or crystal. "Once your people get here, I'm going to look around the city, if that's OK?" It was more of a statement than a question. 

One of the officers said, "Sir, can you move your ship?" he said pointing to the ship parked in the middle of the street. 

"Not a problem." The ship's door closed and without making a sound took off straight up. 

The Central MTF arrived on scene and several local Metas took over the investigation as well as custody of Onyx and his crew. They seemed to ignore Red Nova. The media however was clamoring to get his attention. "I'm going to make that run over Chicago, then head home." Without any further preamble, he took off into the air; a glowing field of energy enveloped him. 

---

"Hey, aren't you..." 

_"No, I'm not,"_ Angelina willed. _"Just continue on your way and forget you ever saw me,"_ she commanded. 

The traveler nodded and continued to his train. It was the twentieth person she had mentally zapped in the last half-hour. She was still wearing her costume, which had prompted the questioning, but she was too depressed to change into normal civilian clothes. Each time she did it, she got an uplifting little jolt of euphoria, along with a healthy dose of shame. 

Chicago Union Station was one of the oldest train stations in the country still operating. Fortunately, at this late hour, there weren't that many people around. Angelina had flown into downtown in a vain attempt to try and find Michael, but she had no idea where the Decathlon was, and even she couldn't search a whole city by herself. _Well, it could have been worse,_ she told herself. _Villains were caught, no one died, only...what... 20 million in property damages?_ she added sarcastically. 

In the bar, she heard a television reporting the evening news. With morbid curiosity, she telekinetically increased the volume so she could hear the report. 

"...and police have emphasized that the crisis does appear to be resolved. Once again, four meta-villains who were holding the Farmer's Village High stadium hostage have been captured and no civilian casualties have been reported. Police are still looking for the fifth meta-villain, who witnesses say appeared to be the ringleader, though reports are conflicted at this time..." 

_Great...now I'm the ringleader..._ she moaned. The television then burst into sparks and died. Around the bar, the few patrons groaned at the loss of the picture. The bartender cursed and shook his head. 

"What happened to the picture?" one of the customers asked. 

"TV shorted out," another patron muttered. 

_So what do I do now,_ she asked herself. From what she could tell, none of the video got a good look at her face. She was high enough up and the stadium was dark enough where it was unlikely that anyone at the stadium would have recognized her, other than Madelyn and Peter, and she had everyone in the train station under her mental thrall so they wouldn't remember her. 

"Tough night out?" an old man next to her asked, then glanced at her. "Nice outfit." 

Angelina looked at him, but then did a double take. Something was different about him, she suddenly realized. "I can't read you," she whispered. 

"It's a blessing Angie, trust me," the old man said wearily. "My head's not a nice place to be." 

Angelina instantly tensed up and looked around. Her telepathy wasn't picking up anything, but the old man in front of her just proved that didn't necessarily mean she was safe. 

"Relax Angie, I'm alone," the man said as he finished his beer. 

"You know who I am? Then you know what I can do?" 

"Kill me with a thought? Blow up half the city? Yeah, I got that part," he said nonchalantly. 

"How did you know where to find me?" she asked warily. 

The old man looked around casually. "This is where it happens. This is where we were supposed to meet." 

"You're a part of the Project," Angelina realized. "Who are you?" 

The old man nodded sadly. "That was a long time ago. The Project called me 'Subject M43'. Your parents knew me as Dennis Halbert." 


	4. First Date

Rutherford McMiller listened in on the hotel conference room telephone. He was currently checked in at the Chicago Four Seasons hotel downtown, with the cover story of looking into Nova Corporation's interests in town. In reality, his goals were much larger than simple financial interests. As he spoke, his laptop provided him video conferencing and additional information from his offices back East. A small device attached to the phone and laptop ensured that the information being exchanged would remain private. 

"...wasn't much for me to do when I landed," Rusty said. "At least in terms of Onyx and his crew. Central MTF though has some disturbing hypotheses about the 5th meta that got away."

"How sure are they that the 5th meta was associated with Onyx?" Nicole asked on the phone.

"Not at all. From what I could tell, the lone meta took Onyx and his team down all by herself. I took some readings from the battle scene. All four were in a deep trance and non-responsive. The stadium was almost a total wreck, but surprisingly no casualties and almost no panic, which suggests a really high-powered broadcast empath or telepath." He leaned forward. "Could you have done that Nicole?"

"15,000 kids?" There was a brief pause on the phone. "Probably not; not with only 2 symbiotes. Maybe if I had all 5, but even if I could, I'd be totally wasted if I tried it. There's no way I could do that and drop Onyx and his friends at the same time."

"The list doesn't end there," Rusty continued. "The air was lousy with ionized noble gases, and I found a substantial amount of molecular anomalies." He held up a crystal figurine of a grasshopper. "Unless Gadgeteer made a Nobel-Prize winning breakthrough on a gizmo we missed, our girl can also play with molecules."

"That sounds like a really dangerous combination," Eddie said with a dark hiss. "Did you manage to at least get an ID on this girl?"

Rusty pressed a key on his laptop. The footage Central MTF provided was grainy and dark, but Rusty had some highly advanced alien technologies for just this kind of job. The photos were washed through several enhancement filters, clearing up the pictures to almost photo studio quality. He then loaded a database copied from Farmer Village High yearbook and ran a comparison check.

"What makes you think she goes to this school?" Nicole asked.

"A hunch," Rusty replied. "The boy that got tossed by Onyx; she caught him when she first arrived at the scene and spent almost fifteen seconds talking with him before sending him to the police and ambulances."

"Well, he is a good-looking kid," Nicole said drolly as Eddie hissed and Rusty smiled with amusement. A beep sounded from the laptop, getting everyone's attention.

"Uh oh..." Rusty said as he read the file. The bright flashing red text caught his attention almost immediately.

"What?" Nicole asked.

"Our girl has a record: Her name's Angelina McGee; alias Clancy. She's a high-school freshman at this school. It says she's wanted by three federal task forces, but her file is covered with several SAP/SAR redacts. The only parts not redacted are the parts that say that her capture is considered highest priority."

"What's she wanted for?" Nicole asked. "And what the hell is a fourteen-year-old doing with Special-Access-Restricted redacts? Who wants her and what are they hiding?"

"That's the other kicker," Rusty said ominously. "The name on top of the file is none other than our pal General Garner."

There was a long quiet pause. "So let me get this straight," Eddie said coldly. "This girl Angelina can split a stadium in half, pacify the civilians, while kicking the crap out of four metahumans, and Garner wants her for reasons that don't get put on an official record. Do I have to say how much this stinks?"

"I'm not going to get emotional about Garner," Nicole said. "But I agree that something about this combination stinks. What do you think Rusty?"

Rusty sighed. "It looks like I'm not going to make the red-eye tonight."

---

Robinson Park was a popular place for all types of people. The feature of the park was the lake in the middle of the grounds, which was surrounded by a jogging track and picnic grounds. Angelina looked on with despondency as she tossed a flat stone into the lake, watching it skip four times before it plopped into the water.

Madelyn shook her head and snorted. "There's, like, no way you did that fair and square."

Angelina sighed. "You're doubting me too?"

"Hey, I'm just kidding." Madelyn looked around, picked up a rock and managed to skip it three times before it dropped into the lake. She looked admiringly at Angelina's stylish outfit. "Well, at least you're dressing better these days."

"Like it? It's something I thought up."

"Aren't you cold in that miniskirt though?"

Angelina shrugged dejectedly. "I don't seem to get hot or cold these days."

Madelyn sighed. "You're still bummed, huh?"

"I trashed the stadium! I was a bigger threat to everyone than the creeps who held you all ransom!"

"You saved Pete's life!" Madelyn reminded her. "You probably saved my life and everyone else at the game! OK, you trashed a stadium," she conceded. "That can be fixed. But I think you're being too hard on yourself. It was your first time. You'll get better."

"I don't know; I don't think I'm ready. You know I don't even have a superhero name?"

"Oh, I've got that, like, so covered!" Madelyn assured Angelina. "Get ready for...Psi Girl!"

"You're joking," Angelina deadpanned.

"OK, OK, how about Mind Maid?"

"Maid? What am I, sixty?"

"Mezmera?"

"Taken."

"How about Mindshadow?" a new voice suggested.

Both Madelyn and Angelina turned towards one of the park benches. "You..." Angelina said with recognition.

"Who?" Madelyn asked.

"He says his name's Dennis Halbert. He said he was part of the Project that's after me. How do you keep finding me?"

"We were supposed to meet again here," Dennis explained ambiguously.

"What are you, like, brain-fried?" Madelyn asked derisively as she noted Dennis' distracted and foggy behavior.

"Actually that's not far from the truth I'm afraid," Dennis admitted. "The Project affected us all differently, mostly for the worse. For me, I can see the future."

"Really," Angelina said dubiously.

"Coming from someone who can do what you can, I would think you'd be more open to such abilities."

Madelyn and Angelina looked at each other and shrugged. "OK...so if you can tell the future, how come you aren't filthy rich or something?" Madelyn asked.

"It doesn't work that way," Dennis explained. "I see the future, but for me, it's already happened. I can't change the future. I just know what's going to happen."

"What did you mean by 'Mindshadow'?" Angelina asked.

"That was the name of the Project," Dennis said. "Project Mindshadow dates back almost twenty years. Its goal was to develop the technology to create high-order psionics of all types, in the hopes of developing a counterforce against the growing metahuman population. Your parents were part of that project."

"Yeah, I know about my parents being part of the Project," Angelina said tiredly.

"No you don't," Dennis said and shook his head. "The parents you knew didn't join the Project until several years later. Your real parents were part of the first wave of test subjects for the treatments."

"So...I was part of this Project?" Angelina asked.

"No," Dennis shook his head. "You were an accident." He saw Angelina give him a baneful look, and then added, "Not that kind of accident."

"Wait a minute," Madelyn said. "You're saying Angie's real parents got their powers from the government? So they could do anything she can? How the hell did the government ever manage to catch them then?"

"Unfortunately for them, they couldn't. None of us at Project Mindshadow had even a fraction of that kind of capability. As I said, Angie was an accident." He sighed sadly. "Your parents found each other while they were test subjects. One thing led to another..." He paused. "Once they had you, the Project took you away for experimentation. So they decided they wanted out."

"So where are they now?" Angelina asked.

Dennis shook his head. "The last time I saw them, you were only a few months old."

"Look, this all sounds fascinating," Angelina said. "But seeing how I can't read you, how can I tell you aren't just selling me a load of crap? Or worse, trying to set me up?"

"Well, you could do what most people do and look things up yourself. Or you can just ask Red Nova when you see him later."

"She's gonna team up with Red Nova?" Madelyn asked hopefully.

"He's probably gonna arrest me for trashing the stadium," Angelina said.

"She goes with him," Dennis said vaguely.

"Oh yeah?" Angelina said willfully. "What if I don't? Won't that mess with your prediction?"

Dennis smiled. "You think you have that choice. From my perspective, it's already happened. But do what you want. Either way, we'll see each other again."

Madelyn and Angelina looked at each other as Dennis took his leave. "Is he for real?" Madelyn asked.

"His mind being closed is real," Angelina said with concern. "I don't know if he's telling the truth or not. He might be a plant from the government to try and lure me into an ambush again."

"Well, he does say you're going to go with Red Nova. Maybe you are going to team up with him."

"Team up for what? A building needs tearing down?" Angelina asked then sighed. "I don't think I'm ready for anything that big. I'd probably just mess things up."

---

Rusty wiped the mirror from the fog that came from his morning shower, as he lathered up for the ceremony most men performed every morning. There was nothing like a decent shower and shave to feel like a new man. Just then, there was a knock on the hotel room door. He grumbled and put on a bathrobe. He looked through the view hole and snorted. _Speak of the devil; let's see what this is all about..._ he thought and opened the door.

"General Garner," Rusty said pleasantly to the military entourage. His hair was still wet from the shower, and he looked more like a fat longhaired hippie than the CEO of a multi-million dollar corporation.

"Mr. McMiller, what a coincidence that you're here in Chicago," Garner said with a gravelly voice. "What brings you here to the Windy City?" he asked, obviously digging for information.

"Business," he said still in his bathrobe and slippers. "I might ask you the same question General. We're a long ways away from the E-Ring, aren't we?"

Garner looked at Rusty with a cold hard expression. "I'm not here to dick around. I want to sign a contract for Nova Tech to produce those new rifles I'm hearing about."

"The MP1300?" Rusty shook his head and tried not to smirk. "Sorry General, but the 1300 isn't ready yet. I'm afraid I can't release any of the technologies, for a number of reasons. The main one being the military hasn't finished testing them. Also, doing so would be a breach of contract, and quite frankly the contract is more important to me than you are."

"More important than your country?"

Rusty smiled as he turned away from Garner. He must have been desperate to resort to such an obvious ploy. "Ah, I see. You must be faced with a situation. Maybe if I knew more about it, I could be of more help."

"It's nothing we can't handle with the right armaments."

"You wouldn't happen to be going after Angelina McGee? Would you?"

The air grew thick with tension. Garner did his best to hide his reaction but Rusty could see his jaw clench. "You do not need to know about her. The less you know, the safer it is for you."

"What can I say? Money was never made playing it safe," Rusty said smugly.

Garner regarded Rusty with a cold expression, and then turned towards the door. He looked to his entourage. "We're done here." He turned towards Rusty. "Let me give you a bit of free advice. Don't go getting involved with affairs that do not concern you. People get hurt when they stick their hands where they don't belong. And if you think the rules don't apply to your pal Red Nova, think again. We are prepared to do whatever it takes to resolve the situation. Whether that's with you or through you, makes no difference to us."

After the door closed, Rusty counted to ten, and then pressed a hidden stud on his watch. "Did you get all that?"

"Sounds like something's pissing in his Corn Flakes," Eddie replied from the communicator. "I love it. What's the next step?"

Rusty opened his notebook and looked at some notes that he had taken. Having the right connections and access to the right databases made for easy detective work. "I think it's time I sampled some of the cuisine in Chicago. I hear hamburgers are good here."

"Good luck Rusty. Call us if you need us."

---

Daniel Nunez shook his head with frustration as he read the e-mail letter on his computer. _What was going on_ he wondered. He was sure that he had filled the paperwork right. He sighed, and then printed the letter for his records. He needed to consult with his boss to figure out what was going on.

After getting the hard copy from the printer and filing it into the folder, he walked to one of the offices and knocked on the door.

"Enter," Mark Weinstein said.

"Mr. Weinstein, do you have a moment?"

"Sure Danny, what's going on?"

Daniel pulled out the folder and referred to some of the documentation. "I was wondering what was going on with the Clancy case. I filed a request for supplemental funding for an adoption and I'm getting turned down. What's the deal?"

Mark took the offered document and looked it over. "You don't have sufficient documentation to prove financial need."

"With all due respect sir, they only have one breadwinner, and he's not exactly a big shot exec. I've documented their mortgage information and cost of living index in the appropriate forms."

"Danny," Mark sighed. "Sometimes the bureaucracy just doesn't always make sense. There's probably a bean counter who's found that the Packards fall in that nether region between too little and too much money. The best thing you can do for this girl is probably try and look into other alternatives. If you want, I'm sure I could help you find another family who's more financially capable to handle the load."

"Sir, I'm not sure that's going to work. I spent time with Miss Clancy. I interviewed the Packards. They have a good relationship with one another. I...I don't think we're going to find another family that's going to care for her more than..."

"It's not always about caring Danny," Mark interrupted. "Sometimes it's more about just taking care of the big picture. You don't want to get hung up on one case. Just find another family and move the file out of your stack."

Daniel sighed. "If it's all right with you sir, I'd like to break the news to Miss Clancy myself."

Mark froze for a moment and looked at Daniel with a hard expression. "Danny, it'd really be better for you if you don't do that. I think you're getting too close to this case for your own good."

"Sir, I gave her my word that I'd do everything I could to help her. If I have to find her another place to live, I'd like for her to hear it from me directly."

"Danny, I know you think you're doing the right thing here, and no one appreciates your empathy for the kids than I do. But I really think the further you are from this girl, the safer it is for you."

Daniel looked at Mark with confusion. _What the hell was Mark talking about?_ "Safer sir?"

_Shit...!_ Mark cursed himself silently. "Sorry Danny, bad choice of words. I just meant that...I think that you're letting your emotions get in the way of your judgment. It's not that uncommon in this line of work." He sighed. "Listen, I'll take care of this situation. You just take care of your other cases. If anything breaks, I give you my word that I'll let you know immediately."

"Yes sir, thank you sir," Daniel said then turned around and left.

Mark waited until the door closed, then picked up the phone. "Mr. Raintree? Do you have an ETA on that house you're preparing? I think we may have a problem..."

---

Roger and Laura Packard sat and fidgeted in the doctor's office. A gruff stern man, Roger didn't like showing weakness. In his line of work, fear was just not an option. One of the Coast Guard's best Chief Petty Officers, he was one of the men who taught at the training facility in New London Connecticut many years ago. He earned a reputation of being able to whip crews into shape, which meant a lot of traveling, leaving his family behind for his career until recent years. Currently one of the senior enlisted men responsible for live-fire exercises around the Great Lakes, he was accustomed to facing tough choices. But like most men, what he hated most of all was the feeling of helplessness when facing the unknown. He steeled himself as the doctor returned from the examination room.

"So what's the prognosis doctor?" Roger asked.

The doctor shook his head. "I've never seen anything like it. Mrs. Packard, you say someone just touched you and you started feeling better?"

"She claimed it was acupressure or something like that, but I got the impression that she was hiding something."

The doctor looked at a set of highly detailed X-rays again. "Well, even setting aside acupressure's dubious benefits, there's no way that explains these results. The good news is that there's no sign of your osteoarthritis. In fact, there's no sign that you've ever had arthritis of any kind. Even your old injuries like the leg you broke last year don't show any signs of prior damage."

"Well, then what's the problem?" Laura asked.

"Well, not a problem, per say. But I would very much like to know the source of the change. If it's actually some kind of treatment that can be duplicated, then it could be a huge boon to a lot of people."

"Doctor, could you give us a moment?" Roger asked.

The doctor nodded and left the room. After they were alone, Roger turned to Laura. "She did something to you, didn't she?" he asked with an accusatory tone.

"Roger!"

"No, I'm serious! There's no other way to say it! Angie's got to be a meta of some kind!"

Laura shook her head. "I can't believe I'm hearing this! We've known Angie for years! She's probably spent more time at our home over the years than you did! Why do you have such a problem with her now? Maybe she can heal people with a touch! Is that such a bad thing?"

"Laura," Roger said, forcing himself to calm down, "in case you don't remember, Angie's parents were murdered. I've seen meta conflicts up close and they are never pretty or confined. I also don't believe in coincidence. Whoever killed Angie's parents almost certainly had something to do with her being a meta. I don't want you or Maddie getting hurt."

Laura also calmed down. "Roger...I know that your heart is in the right place. You've always been there for us. But you don't know what it's like to be constantly in pain."

"Now wait just a minute..."

"No, let me finish. If Angie was trying to hide something from us, then all she had to do was nothing at all. She chose to heal me because she was trying to help. If you're asking me to turn my back on her because you're afraid of what might happen, then I just won't do that."

"And what about Maddie? What if she's at risk? For that matter, does she even know?"

"Maddie?" Laura sighed. "With all the time they spend together, I can't imagine that she doesn't know."

Roger folded his arms. "All right. We'll find out what Maddie knows first before we do anything. But we're going to have to do what's best for our family."

---

George Cicero ran through the alleyway, keeping an eye out for anyone following him. Many of the people on the street called him 'Georgie'; a childhood nickname he always hated. Over the last year, he had graduated from running numbers to planning bigger jobs with the growing underground community of metahumans. As a normal human who had managed to keep his record clean, he made an ideal scout for scoping out sites before a job.

He stopped to catch his breath once he was pretty sure that no one was following him. Secretly, he harbored a jealousy for the metas; they really were the future of crime and everyone knew it. Well, he reasoned, if he couldn't actually be a meta, he could ride their coattails up the ladder of success in the underworld. He just had to watch his step around them; many metas were also basket cases in psychoses and delusions. He kept that in mind as he finally reached the warehouse and walked inside.

"You're late," James Conway said. Like George, James also looked to join the rising clique of metahuman criminals.

"Gimme a break, Jimmy," George said. "I had to make sure they had what he wanted. Is he there?"

"Yeah, and he's ticked off."

George shuddered as he proceeded. The last henchman who heard that never made it out of the warehouse.

"Where have you been?" a booming voice said from the darkness.

"I just got back," George said nervously. "I had to make sure no one followed me."

The man stepped out of the shadows and began to rub his hands. "Then tell me some news. And it better be good news!"

"S-sure Maelstrom! It's the best! The clay idol you were asking for is in the offices, just like I said! Some fancy shmancy import-clearing house from Asia has it! They're on the 38th floor of the tower!"

Maelstrom began to cackle and laugh. "Then it's all coming together! Once I get my hands on that idol, its mystic energies will increase my dark powers to their ultimate incarnation! And those who stood in the way of my destiny will pay the final price!"

---

Angelina scanned her thoughts as soon as she finished taking her latest customer's order. Madelyn was finishing up with band rehearsal and was going to be coming to the restaurant. Also in the background, she could hear Willie thinking up his next pickup lines, even though she had already turned him down for a date again, both during school and when she first started her work shift. Part of her wanted to go ahead and go on a date, then turn it into a disaster, but based on the fantasy images in Willie's mind, she wasn't even sure that would have worked. In any event, she wasn't sure she had the heart to abuse him that way. But she was running out of ideas on how to deal with it with mundane methods.

The next customer came up. Angelina entered the order in on autopilot, doing her best to try and ignore the sea of other people's thoughts and emotions as they continuously flooded her mind. She sighed; throughout school the last few days, she was privy to every bit of gossip and rumors, both true and false. Just getting through the day, she again had to tap into Madelyn's mind to draw enough strength to maintain her sanity. Michael had admitted that he was at a loss with her telepathic powers, other than to suggest scheduling an appointment to an endocrinologist. _Like I have the money for that. And even if I did, who could I trust to keep doctor-patient confidentiality under my circumstances?_

Fortunately for her, the BurgerMart was its own building and not part of a mall food court, which meant fewer minds to deal with, which was about the only blessing her job offered her. Over the last couple days, her powers were making it more and more difficult to enjoy simple pleasures like eating. The same abilities that gave her an innate sense of molecules also made her aware of the chemical processes that went on inside her body when she tried eating. It was like watching an animated version of Upton Sinclair's novel "The Jungle". In response to that, she had begun practicing keeping up her body's need for chemical energy by steadily maintaining her blood sugars, minerals and hormone levels. Despite her initial success however, she began to feel increasingly distant to everyone around her, so every now and then, she would force herself to go back to normal eating, and just try to ignore the digestion assembly line.

"Excuse me Miss?" the next customer said.

Angelina shook her head. "I'm sorry, welcome to BurgerMart, can I take your order?"

The man looked at her nametag and his eyes narrowed. "Yes, Angelina, is it?"

"I'm sorry, do I know you?"

The man shook his head. "No, just trying to be polite. Let's see... I'll have a number 3 medium combo with a Sprite, apple pie, and how about ten minutes of your time."

Angelina blinked then looked at the man more directly and tensed up. _His mind's shielded. It's going to take some effort to get around it._ She glanced around then listened for additional thoughts. _No sign of any soldiers or government troops; he's probably alone. But what did he want?_ "Um... Mr. Cade?"

Gary Cade came over and looked at the situation. "Is there a problem sir?"

"No, no problem. I'd just like to have a brief private chat with your employee."

Gary smiled. _You can look, but please don't touch,_ his thoughts said, which made Angelina roll her eyes. "Ah... I'm afraid we don't allow that kind of fraternization. It wouldn't be professional."

"I'm afraid you misunderstand Mr. Cade," the man said with a serious tone as he read the manager's nametag. "I'm here to discuss serious business with Angelina."

Gary's expression turned to one of concern. "What kind of business? Are you a cop or something? Is she in some kind of trouble?"

"Probably not, but I need to find out what she was doing a couple nights ago. As for who am I, the name's Rutherford McMiller."

Gary looked at the man with renewed respect. "The Rutherford McMiller? Nova Tech Corp?"

"The same. Now can I have a few minutes with Angelina? It's very important."

---

Rusty finished half his burger before taking a sip of soda. _"Franchises were just terrible about making food taste the same from coast-to-coast. It just kills the incentive to travel and try food in different regions of the country. Don't you agree?"_

Angelina blinked at the directed thought as Rusty silently congratulated himself for making her tip her hand so easily. "French fry?" he offered with a seemingly innocent smile.

"I see plenty of those all afternoon. Besides, you're not here to talk about food and travel," Angelina said softly as she looked downcast.

"Then what am I here to talk about? Normally, that's my cue to go ahead and tell you why I'm here, but I suspect you can already tell me that."

"You want to know if I was involved with the plot at the stadium."

"It probably would have paid a lot more than this place."

Angelina picked up a packet of ketchup, held it in her closed fingers, blew a puff into her fist, and then dropped the heavy yellow metal packet-shaped nugget in front of Rusty. "If I just wanted money without earning it, I wouldn't bother holding all those kids hostage."

Rusty looked the gold nugget over with intense interest. Four to six ounces, he estimated, easily $2,200 or more. "Why on earth are you working here?"

Angelina shrugged. "Well, after I found out my parents were actually government agents who were murdered for not keeping me under their control, I'm kind of left with little choice if I want to support myself without resorting to cheating or stealing from people." She sighed and shook her head. "I'm sorry; it's a long boring story. You probably didn't come all this way from Rhode Island to hear me unload my sob story on you."

Rusty looked at Angelina with quiet fascination. "I'd very much like to hear it."

Angelina paused. "Hold on, my friend Maddie's here."

"Hey Angie, you on your break?" Madelyn said as she walked into the restaurant. "Who's the hippie, another social worker?" _Not as good looking as the other one,_ she thought.

"No, nothing like that," Angelina said. "Mr. McMiller just wanted to know what happened at the stadium."

"Oh right... so, did Red Nova ever show up?" Madelyn asked frivolously.

"Maddie, meet Red Nova," Angelina said, gesturing at Rusty, who blanched slightly before regaining his composure. He made a mental note to talk to Angelina about being so blithe about secret identities.

"Get out..." Madelyn said with an impish expression, and then looked at Angelina's expression more carefully. "Oh God...he's here because I dissed his costume, isn't he?"

"It's got nothing to do with anything like that." Rusty said. He then shrugged. "Besides, what's wrong with Red Nova's costume?"

"She thinks you need a cape," Angelina said quietly with a smile.

"Capes are, like, the thing to wear if you can, you know..." Madelyn said as she concluded by a sweeping expression of flight with her hand.

Rusty shook his head at the naivety. "Capes aren't always practical. In a fight, they get caught at the worst possible times. Red Nova's powers would shred a cape so often it's not worth it. I even know at least one meta hero several years ago who got shot and killed because his cape got caught in a revolving door and he couldn't free himself."

"Eww... " Madelyn said with a wrinkled expression.

"Look Angelina, I'd very much like to talk about this further in private. When do you get off work?" Rusty asked.

"Another hour or so. I can't talk too long though. I've got a book report due tomorrow."

Rusty sighed. "Maybe I'm not making myself clear. Angelina, I'm here to talk, but to put it bluntly, I also need to know what your motives are. Your report can wait."

"Her motives?" Madelyn said. "She saved everyone at that game! What kind of motive are you looking for?"

Rusty turned to Madelyn. "Miss, I'm willing to listen to Angelina and give her the benefit of doubt. But there are some others who wouldn't. I really need her to come with me to discuss this matter in private."

Madelyn and Angelina looked at each other with mixed emotions. "Well, he did say you'd go with him," Madelyn said with a sotto voce.

Angelina sighed. It looked like there was no graceful way around it. "Can you take my books back home with you?"

"Sure. Go beat up a bank robber or something," Madelyn said with a wink.

---

The Chicago Sears Tower was arguably the most famous building in the city. Built in 1973, the tower was the tallest building in America, and was only surpassed by a handful of contenders in Asia. Originally built by Sears to consolidate thousands of employees, the original purpose was lost when increasing competition from the retail business forced Sears to scale back its expectations and eventually abandon its own creation. Currently filled with over a hundred different businesses ranging from law firms, insurance companies and financial service firms, it was still one of the finest locations for business. Among the many companies included the small offices and storage area of Saiyan Imports and Exports Emporium.

"Can I help you sir?" the front desk receptionist for the Saiyan Emporium asked the group of men as they entered.

"Why yes!" Maelstrom said with a cackling glee. "You can take us to the Idol of Z'Nox!"

"Wha...?" the receptionist gasped.

"Ahahaha...!" Maelstrom said as a black bolt of energy erupted from his fingers, disintegrating a hole through the receptionist's chest and the wall behind her. "Oh, I'm sorry, did you need those organs?" he said with a giggle.

_Oh shit...! So much for stealth!_ George cursed. What the hell was Maelstrom thinking? But he knew better than to voice his thoughts, lest he end up joining the poor receptionist. "Uh...uh...boss, the Idol?"

"Oh yes, of course Georgie!" Maelstrom said. "The Idol calls to me!"

"The guards are coming!" George reminded Maelstrom.

"That's good! The Idol calls to them as well!"

"Uh... it does?"

"Of course! There must be an audience to witness my ascension! My throne must be built on the bones of my enemies! And the darkness must feed!"

---

Red Nova watched from above as Angelina stepped into the alleyway, transformed her clothes into her costume and took to the sky. Not an uncommon trick, but always a useful one, he thought. When she reached his altitude, he asked "You ready to talk?"

Angelina nodded as she swallowed unconsciously. Nova's voice sounded distorted and metallic behind his mask. What was she so afraid of, she wondered. He said he just wanted to talk. "So what do you want to know?"

"Well, for starters, what do you call yourself? I'm assuming you don't want me blurting out your real name in public."

"The best Maddie and I could come up with was 'Mindshadow'."

"Mindshadow?"

"Well, it was either that or 'Psi-Girl'," Angelina said with a shrug.

_Ugh..._ "OK, Mindshadow it is. You know, since your friend is going to critique my costume, you really should cover your face."

"And what's wrong with my face?" Angelina asked with a slightly offended tone.

"Nothing," Red Nova said coyly. "You're a very pretty girl. You're also very photogenic and recognizable and if you have any interest in maintaining a private life, you really should be more discrete."

"Fine." Angelina concentrated on the air molecules on front of her face, reshaping them to a one-piece mirrored visor. "How's that?"

"That's fine."

"So what did you want to know?" as the two of them began to fly towards downtown at high speed.

"What is your story? How did you know the stadium was under attack?"

"I heard the kids screaming, so I came to help. Several of the kids at that game were my friends."

"You heard the kids? Were you in the area?"

"I didn't have to be. When enough people have high emotions, I can feel them miles away."

"OK, so you came to help. Why did you start tearing the stadium apart?"

"I wasn't trying to; it was an accident!" Angelina said with some agitation. "It was my first time and when I started getting hurt, my powers can get out of control."

"I saw the fight footage. It didn't look like you were being touched. How did you get hurt?"

"My telepathy can get very intense. When the kids started to panic, their emotions hit me pretty hard."

"OK, what about the fire?"

"One of them; I think he called himself Vortex tried to attack me with water. I was able to hold it off, but when I got hurt, I lost my concentration. And like I said, when that happens, my powers can break molecular bonds and transmute matter. I think I accidentally electrolyzed the water into hydrogen and oxygen."

"I guess that makes sense," Red Nova said thoughtfully. "The exposed wiring from the shattered stadium lights would have ignited the hydrogen."

"Any more questions?" as they came to a slow hover a mile over downtown.

"I have concerns Mindshadow. I want to believe that you had the best of intentions. The evidence that I've seen seems to support your story. Be that as it may, it's very clear that you're very powerful. In fact, I'd say you're one of the most powerful psis I've ever seen and I've seen almost everyone. Then there's the fact that you seem to have some serious control issues. With your powers, any slip is going to have consequences."

"Don't you think I know that?" Angelina said tersely. "Ever since my powers came out, I've had to maintain concentration every moment of the day. I can't come near a crowd without my head being flooded with people's thoughts. I always have to feel every molecule around me moving to whatever I'm thinking about. I can even feel my powers changing my body and I don't know how to stop it."

"Then why did you decide to be a superhero?"

"It really wasn't my idea. Maddie thought that I should use my abilities to help people, and when Onyx attacked my school, I really didn't have much choice."

"Do you know what your limits are?" Red Nova held up a hand before Angelina could answer. "Hear me out first; when I got my abilities I had no idea how dangerous I could be. I made mistakes, a lot of mistakes, but no one died from it. I found out I had other abilities not too long ago, and our group got the attention of one of the government groups who studies metahumans. There's a group that for some reason has interest in you. I haven't been able to find much about the why."

"That's putting it mildly," Angelina said. "When my powers started coming out, I found out that my whole life was a big government conspiracy. The people I thought were my parents turned out to be government agents. They were feeding me drugs that kept me doped up all the time."

"Someone was trying to keep your abilities suppressed. Again the why isn't obvious, but a good doctor friend of mine thinks it might have been so you could grow up without your abilities. It's all guessing at the moment, but if you can shed any light onto that..." Red Nova turned around and noticed Angelina looking away from him. "Am I boring you?"

"No," Angelina said and then shook her head. "There are people below who are panicking. There's someone down there calling himself 'Maelstrom' blowing people up in the Sears Tower."

"Oh crap...Maelstrom?" Red Nova quickly checked the radio built into his costume and confirmed the news. "That's serious business. Maelstrom's fought the Dark Saviors to a standstill in the past." He flew down towards the Sears Tower, but stopped when he realized that he was alone. He flew back up and saw Angelina trembling.

"They're dying...! I can feel their minds just turning off like fireflies!" Angelina said despairingly.

"Snap out of it!" Red Nova said. "I need you to get it together! I've sent a distress call for the rest of the Saviors, but it's going to take them some time to get here! I'm going to need some help to contain the situation until then!" He touched her on the shoulder. "I'm opening my mind to you so we can coordinate but you've got to pull yourself together, understand?"

Angelina snapped her attention back to Red Nova, and then nodded shakily. "I'll do my best."

---

George and James hid under cover as the Saiyan offices exploded all around them. They cringed as they watched office workers running out of the warehouse area screaming, many of them with body parts missing, leaving behind bloody entrails as they futilely tried to escape their deaths.

"Jesus Christ...!" George said. Of course he knew that killing was part of the job, but this level of massacre was more than he could stomach.

"Hahahaha...!" Maelstrom said. "The Idol is mine at last!" He approached the locked safe, blasted the door open and walked past the remaining dead guards. He then placed his hands on the clay idol and began to pulse with a dark evil-looking light.

"Oh shit...!" James said.

"Uh...boss...can we get out of here now?" George asked fearfully.

"Ah yes, my faithful followers! Indeed we can! And as reward for your efforts, you may go forth to the streets and spread my dark gospel."

George and James looked at each other. The dark pulses around Maelstrom were building in intensity and it didn't take a genius to see where this was going. They both headed towards the elevators. But before they reached it, an arc of dark energy exploded in a massive arc, just barely missing James' and George's heads. The arcs ripped through the entire floor, slicing through the elevator shafts and shattering the emergency stairs.

"Boss! How do we get out of here?" George said as he began to feel the panic. Had he placed his bet on the wrong horse?

"Why you must take a leap of faith of course!" Maelstrom declared. "Show your faith in your new God!"

_Oh shit, we're gonna die!_ James' expression said quite clearly. He looked at George as the cloud of black energy closed in on them. Die to the black cloud or take that leap of faith? George's expression back to him gave his answer quite clearly. At least outside, they'd get one last breath of fresh city smog. An honest death, his face said. James gritted his teeth and prayed. _If I get out of this, I swear, no more metas! Honest to God, I'll stick to carjacking, I swear!_ With that prayer in his mind, James and George stepped out of the windows and plunged to the ground right as the 37th, 38th and 39th floors exploded.

---

_My God..._ Red Nova thought. It was far worse than he could have possibly imagined. The last time he fought Maelstrom, he had the Dark Saviors with him, and they had fought in a relatively abandoned warehouse. They had gotten lucky that night; they managed to drive him off with minimal innocent casualties, other than the poor unfortunate fools who were helping him. The number of casualties was already ten times that number and the battle hadn't even started.

_"Mindshadow, Maelstrom's powers disintegrate matter. Can your molecule powers counter that?"_

Mindshadow concentrated as she reached out and began calming the panic from thousands of minds. After the stadium debacle, she had learned her lesson and put her distaste for mind manipulation aside. The last thing she needed was to be paralyzed by the overwhelming flood of emotions; she needed all the euphoria people's minds could give her. _It's for the greater good,_ she tried to assure herself as she mentally urged everyone to quickly and calmly evacuate the area as orderly as possible. _"I think I can! But it's taking everything I have to keep the panic down and the tower intact! I can't reach Maelstrom's mind through all the mental static!"_

_"Never mind him! You just keep doing what you're doing; you're doing great!"_ Red Nova assured. _"Maelstrom's mine!"_ he declared as he dove into the ruins of the 38th floor.

Mindshadow gritted her teeth and furrowed her brow as Red Nova disappeared into the black cloud of death. She had already managed to levitate a dozen people who had tumbled out of the trembling building and lowered them gently to the streets. In her mind, she could feel the inky energy sucking away all the molecular bonds, reducing the building materials into component gases. She frantically commanded the molecules to reassemble themselves as quickly as she could; it would be a race between order and entropy. She hoped that Red Nova knew what he was doing; she didn't know how much longer she could keep this up.

---

"General Garner, I think you'd better see this," a technician said.

Garner and Raintree turned towards the television. They had gathered to examine their options. With Red Nova having been sighted in Chicago, they were considering a variety of ideas on what to do with their need to recapture F67.

"...and it's carnage here in South Wacker Drive as we're getting chaotic reports from witnesses fleeing the scene. But as near as we can determine, there's been a major incident in the Sears Tower, as we've seen thousands of people evacuating the area. Emergency response teams are establishing a perimeter trying to contain the chaos." The television picture changed to show a shaky picture showing Red Nova diving into the building, then refocusing a picture on Mindshadow hovering over the streets.

"Angelina..." Raintree muttered almost under his breath.

"What the hell is she doing?" Garner demanded. He looked at the picture for additional clues. "Did she start this?"

"Negative General," the technician said. "According to our sources, there's a cloud of negative energy building up just below the 40th floor."

"Perhaps not," Raintree said. "But maybe we can take advantage of the situation. After all, isn't it appropriate for the government to respond to protect the citizens from this obviously dangerous menace?"

"Agreed," Garner nodded. "Deploy the troops!"

---

Red Nova struggled as he flew through the pitch-black cloud of energy. Only his powerful force field prevented him from disintegrating like the rest of the building. But he was completely blind. _Damn it, where are you_ he raged.

"You can't see me...!" Maelstrom taunted. "But I can see you...!"

Red Nova suddenly reeled as a powerful blast impacted against his chest, slamming him into the outer wall of the building. He could feel the wall tingling to the touch; it was being disintegrated and reintegrated at an almost equal clip. Mindshadow was doing her best to keep the building up, _which was more than you're doing right now, old man!_ he chastised himself. Another blast clipped him in the head, almost driving his face into the floor. _Hopeless,_ he realized. There was no way he could fight him under these circumstances. He needed to change the battlefield.

"Fall before the might of the living God of darkness and death!" Maelstrom cackled with glee.

"Why is a God so afraid to face me?" Red Nova taunted.

"A God fears nothing!" Maelstrom declared as another blast blew out the windows and wall behind Red Nova. "Be gone, unworthy one!" Maelstrom bellowed as a powerful blast impacted against Red Nova's chest, blowing him back outside. Red Nova began to fall, the shadowy substance clinging to his force field.

_"I got you,"_ Mindshadow said as she reached out and caught Red Nova in mid-air.

_"No, I'm fine! Keep doing what you're doing!"_ Red Nova said. _"We've got to stall for time until the rest of the Dark Saviors get here! Can you see inside that black cloud?"_

_"Sort of,"_ Mindshadow said. She focused her concentration away from visual sight and let her molecular senses take over. In her mind, she could feel the lattice of atoms and molecules, as they were being manipulated by her and broken down by Maelstrom.

_"Can you guide me? There are still hundreds of people in the affected floors."_

Mindshadow concentrated. _"I need you to open your mind to me. People have a distinct molecular signature; look for the complicated looking chains of carbons and organic molecules."_

Red Nova braced himself mentally, and then was taken aback slightly. _Wow..._ he thought. _This was going to take some getting use to..._ He braced himself and teleported back into the building. The people in there though didn't have the luxury of waiting for him to get used to the new sense; he would have to learn as he went.

"Help us, anyone!" a voice said in the darkness.

"Take my hand!" Red Nova said as he reached for the cluster of people and teleported back onto the street. _Two down, a few hundred more to go..._

---

Mindshadow watched with desperation as she continued to hold the tower main supports in place. Red Nova had managed to get about half the office workers out of the 35th to 40th floors, but the people above 40 were trapped. There were no stairs any longer, and it was taking all her concentration to keep the main weight-bearing pillars intact.

"Behold your new master!" Maelstrom bellowed to the crowd as he drifted out of the ruined building and floated in the air above the crowd. "You!" he snarled as he saw Mindshadow. "You are the one who has been opposing my glorious designs! You would defy a God? Then suffer the punishments of the damned!"

"Aa...!" Mindshadow screamed as the black energy sliced through her force field. She frantically took hold of her own body's molecules, preventing them from dissipating into gas.

"Let her go!" Red Nova shouted as he blasted Maelstrom from above, slamming him into the pavement thirty-five floors below. He was about to pursue the villain down, but then he heard the crack of the building above him.

_"Mindshadow! The building!"_

Mindshadow gritted her teeth and blinked away the tears of pain and reached out once again, commanding the molecules in the main struts to reassemble themselves.

"You dare lay your hands onto a God?" Maelstrom snarled as he picked himself up from the street. "Now behold the price for your defiance!" With that, Maelstrom concentrated and his body began to glow with a black pulsing aura that projected outward. As the aura grew, it began to disintegrate everything in its path.

_Oh my God...!_ Mindshadow gasped. She reached out and commanded the asphalt street to flow up and envelop groups of civilians who had stumbled and were unable to move to safety. _"Calm yourselves,"_ she willed as she soothed the panic and fear from the civilians in the makeshift shelter. She made a reminder to herself to make sure to keep the oxygen in the shelter refreshed, lest she be responsible for more tragedy than what had already happened. As she did so, she finally managed to finish sealing the main pillars in the Sears Tower back together. It would hold for the time being.

---

Ten blocks away from ground zero, citizens were still fleeing from the battle. The media had already begun sending in helicopters and vans, all in the name of getting the exclusive with visions of Pulitzers in their heads. There was a sense of invincibility; no one in their profession ever really got killed; it was an unwritten rule. Even terrorists loved to be interviewed. Besides, they all took comfort in the military convoy that was heading into the battle as well. Surely the Army would protect them, even if Maelstrom didn't recognize the opportunity to give his message to the world.

In the lead military truck, Garner held up a communicator and barked orders. "Give me a status report!"

"Satellite confirms that the event is still ongoing, centered around the Sears Tower. We mark F67 is still in the area, along with Red Nova. Wait a minute... another ship is coming into the zone. Black aircraft, no markings..."

_Shit..._ Garner cursed as he hung up the communicator. That could only be one ship. He just hoped he could extract the package before those meddlers got in the way.

---

Red Nova tensed up as he heard a familiar voice. _"I see you're letting anyone in your head these days Rusty."_

_"What can I say, she was cute and available,"_ he quipped before turning serious. _"What's your position now?"_

_"Directly above you now,"_ Dark Fury said. _"We're ready for drop. What's the situation?"_

_"Just Maelstrom, but he's jacked up somehow. He must have found a way to boost his powers. The girl with me is Mindshadow; she's the one holding the city towers intact and keeping the panic down."_

_"Then we're free to handle the situation directly,"_ Shadow Spawn said with a cold mental voice. _"Can you give us a position? We've got no visual on the target."_

_"Form on me,"_ Red Nova declared. _"Mindshadow's got a lock on him with her senses, but she can't spare the energy to attack his mind. Dark Fury, join Mindshadow in the air and see if you can help boost her abilities to get a better lock. Shadow Spawn, see if you can get inside and stop him directly."_

---

Maelstrom came to a hover just above the street. "Enough foolish games! Now my true mission begins! Once my power has reached its full peak, I will generate an ebony pulse powerful enough to breach the Earth's crust, sinking this miserable city in one fell swoop!"

"Sink this!" Shadow Spawn said as he charged into the blackness. As he plunged into the black mass, his tentacles began to strip away the deeper he pushed. _"Argh...! Nova, you weren't kidding about Maelstrom's increased power! Even my regen can't keep up with this!"_

_"Pull back!"_ Red Nova urged. _"We've got to shrink that aura first!"_

---

Dark Fury flew up to behind Mindshadow and placed her hands on Mindshadow's forehead. While direct physical contact was not strictly necessary for a mental connection, especially between telepaths, right now every little bit helped.

_"Open up girl,"_ Dark Fury ordered. _"Let's see what you've got."_

_"It's too much!"_ Mindshadow said with despair. _"There are buildings everywhere that are about to come down and people that need protecting from those blasts!"_

_"You're wasting too much energy trying to save everyone,"_ Dark Fury said coldly. _"You're the only one here whose power directly affects molecules. We need you to focus your energy on that disintegration aura or we're going to be here all night. Take all that power you're drawing in and focus it on a sphere around him."_

_"Drawing what power?"_

_"Never mind. Just follow my lead. Let the people out there save themselves for a few seconds. We can help them most by focusing on the problem directly."_

---

"No fair! My divine power! What have you done?" Maelstrom demanded as the black aura of energy began to shrink and grow weaker. "Unfair!"

_"Outstanding you two!"_ Red Nova said. The black aura was no longer quite opaque and he could now see his target. _"Shadow Spawn, I see something in his left hand. Some kind of idol or statue and I think it's pulsing."_

Shadow Spawn flexed his razor sharp tentacles. _"Just give me the word! Hopefully we'll at least shut him up, if nothing else!"_

"Foul! I call a foul! Everyone must be penalized for cheating!" Maelstrom screamed as he continued his rampage.

_"Dark Fury, give us an opening!"_ Red Nova ordered.

Dark Fury focused her concentration on Maelstrom's mind. His mind was already mostly gone. Some kind of foreign energy was disrupting his already-shaky handle on reality. All she needed now was a little push...

"Argh...!" Maelstrom screamed as individual lances of black energy shot out in all directions. The solid aura flickered then faded.

_"Now!"_ Red Nova ordered.

Shadow Spawn leaped forward, dodging the black lances, and swung his razor sharp tentacle. The shadowy blade sliced through Maelstrom's left hand in a single swoop.

"No...! The Idol of Z'Nox!" Maelstrom cried as the idol and his left hand tumbled through the rubble of the damaged streets and into the sewers. "I must retrieve it or all is lost!"

"I don't think so!" Red Nova declared and channeled his power into a double-fisted beam of energy. The wide beam hit Maelstrom right in the chest, blasting a wide hole through his body. He looked at the fatal wound for an instant, with realization coming a fraction of a second later before collapsing. As he did so, a trembling aura of energy ignited one last time.

_"Take cover!"_ Red Nova called out, just as the cloud of black energy flashed out in all directions. The team hid under various defenses and protection as the burst washed over buildings in all directions. As the energy faded for the last time, the sounds of cracking stone and bending steel could be heard all around.

_"Oh crap...!"_ Shadow Spawn said. He looked around, but realized that this was out of his area. Even with his strength, he couldn't apply it evenly across an entire building and even if he could, there was no way he could reach all the buildings in time.

Mindshadow shook her head. _"It's too much! I can't hold that many buildings at once!"_

_"Can you boost her somehow?"_ Red Nova asked Dark Fury frantically.

_"Some,"_ Dark Fury said as she held onto Mindshadow's forehead again. _"But you can boost her more!"_

_"How?"_

_"She doesn't know it, but Mindshadow has an ability to tap into and absorb energy from outside sources which increases her powers geometrically."_

_"Link us up!"_ Red Nova ordered as he powered up the rest of his energies. He turned to Mindshadow. _"Brace yourself...!"_

Mindshadow screamed in pain as Red Nova channeled his internal energy into her body. Dark Fury guided him as she monitored Mindshadow's vital signs and mental strength.

_"Concentrate!"_ Dark Fury ordered. _"Focus on the buildings! Don't lose it!"_

_"Push Mindshadow! You can do it!"_ Red Nova urged. _"They're counting on you! The city is counting on you!"_

Shadow Spawn looked around tensely. He felt slightly left out of the rescue efforts; he never was a fan of the saying "those who also serve", but he was living it now. The whole city was bathed in a translucent energy coming from the trio as they focused all their power and concentration. Inside all the buildings, weight-bearing columns were gently being lifted and reassembled molecule by molecule. Walls and floors from as far away as ten blocks rebuilt themselves from the fallen rubble.

Finally after several tense seconds, the energies began to fade. The sounds of cracking stone and bending steel came to a hush. Dark Fury and Red Nova each gave an exhausted sigh of relief as Mindshadow crumpled in mid-air and collapsed to the ground.

---

Red Nova breathed heavily as he gently picked Mindshadow up off the ground as Shadow Spawn and Dark Fury looked on. They looked around at the eerie calm where there would normally be panic. The Sears Tower and surrounding office buildings were in terrible shape with half their windows blasted out and battle damage marking their walls, but were otherwise structurally sound. A quick look at the people peering out of those windows confirmed the thousands of lives who had been saved. _"You did real good Angelina,"_ Red Nova thought.

Just then, they looked up. The Dark Saviors had been so drained from the battle; they didn't even notice that a whole convoy of trucks had arrived onto the scene. Military trucks, along with several helicopters; they weren't here for rescue efforts, the Dark Saviors realized. Red Nova's suspicions were confirmed as General Garner disembarked from the lead vehicle, along with a reinforced company of soldiers.

"Well, Red Nova, we meet again," Garner said brusquely.

"This is not a good time for your bullshit," Red Nova said with a cold metallic voice.

"Oh, I think it is," Garner disagreed. "But I'm not here to spar with you today. I'm here to retrieve the package. If you would so kindly back away from Subject F67, we can conclude our business without any further disagreements."

_F67?_ Red Nova wondered for a moment, before realizing who he meant. He was severely weakened from the battle. Around him, he counted no less than a hundred soldiers armed with high-tech rifles and advanced crew-fed weaponry from mounted vehicles backing them up. Despite the odds, his determination never wavered. "This girl... almost single-handedly saved everyone in the city! I'm going to take her to get medical help!"

"I'm afraid you're mistaken," Garner corrected. "That is not a girl. She's a weapon. She represents hundreds of millions of dollars of investment. She's government property. She's our property."

"You're the one who's mistaken General," Red Nova said. "I am taking her with me! She's earned a chance to live her life without your interference!"

"I'm going to give you the same advice I gave your friend Mr. McMiller: Don't get involved with affairs that do not concern you. Stand down now!"

"Not going to happen!" Red Nova snarled.

"Light'em up!" Garner ordered. Behind him, a hundred rifles began to hum as their power supplies were ignited and locked.

Red Nova stood his ground. Behind him, Shadow Spawn and Dark Fury stood ready behind him.

"Don't be stupid Red Nova," Garner growled. "Even the Dark Saviors can't take an entire reinforced company."

"Some things are worth the risk General! Some people are worth fighting for! You want her? You go through us to get her!"

"And me." Garner fumed and Red Nova looked on with some surprise as one of the civilians in the area stood up and joined the Dark Saviors. "That girl kept me from falling to my death."

"And me," another civilian said. "She saved my whole office from panicking and guided us all to safety."

One by one, then by groups, various civilians stood up and joined the growing crowd. Garner looked around with scarcely concealed rage, but held himself in check. All around him, the media was recording the event, and more than a few reporters were beginning to take notice.

"What's it going to be General?" Red Nova asked with cold measured tones. "Want to kill us to get to your precious weapon? Mow down a hundred innocent civilians on live TV? Think she's worth any price?"

For several more tense seconds, Garner assessed his options. _Damn it..._ he realized. There was no way he could make this many people "disappear". Too many loose ends; too many questions would go unanswered. "Stand down!" he ordered as the soldiers behind him slung their rifles. Around them, the soldiers all got back into their vehicles as the Dark Saviors watched. Garner was the last one on, looked back to Red Nova; he didn't need Dark Fury reading Garner's mind to catch the unmistakable meaning. _This isn't over Red Nova... next time, your ass is mine..._

---

Dr. Emily Marshall took notice as her patient began to stir. She had met Rusty years ago when he was instrumental for getting her reinstated as a doctor after being suspended from bogus charges. She owed him her livelihood, so in return, she ran this private medical clinic for him; one of several across the country. A metahuman herself, Emily had a gift for sensing other metas and their powers. From her perspective, the one in the hospital bed in front of her was a bright beacon pulsing with power.

"You're awake, good," Emily said.

"Dr. Marshall?" Angelina asked weakly.

Emily leaned closer. "It's not very ladylike to go prying into people's minds, you know."

"Sorry," Angelina apologized. "It's hard for me to screen it out."

"So I've heard. It's good that you're up. We couldn't get your costume off. Do you think you could take off one of your gloves? I'd like to take your physical while we're making sure you're OK."

Angelina glanced at her costume. With a thought, her outfit began to flow and shape itself into a hospital gown. Emily shook her head; _you just never got used to seeing that, though it must be nice when you're trying to decide on what to wear._ With her patient's arm exposed, Emily disinfected the vein area on Angelina's arm and prepared a blood kit. Angelina tensed slightly; despite everything else in her life, like most people, needles made her nervous. After drawing two test tubes worth of blood, Emily bandaged the wound. "I'll be right back. Rusty'll probably want to talk to you, but I'm sure you'll be free to go soon."

---

"...and we are still here at what remains of the Chicago Sears Tower, where less than three hours ago, the city was ravaged by a brawl between several metahumans. According to eyewitnesses, the Dark Saviors were identified, along with the known villains Maelstrom and the unknown ringleader of last week's hostage crisis at Farmer Village High stadium. Authorities are refusing to elaborate on any motive, other than wanton destruction. Damage is estimated in the hundreds of millions and no less than twenty-eight people have been confirmed killed..."

Nicole shook her head at the television as the brainless talking head continues his blather. "Not one single mention of how many people saved."

Eddie scowled. "Garner's media lackeys work fast, don't they?" He shrugged. "Not that we ever worried about the press before."

"Well, we have the luxury of not worrying about the press too much because we have the benefit of a reputation," Rusty said, then glanced at the closed door to the patient area. "Angelina doesn't have that benefit. I am convinced that she had nothing to do with what went down at that high school, other than saving all those kids. And she sure as hell doesn't deserve to get lumped in with Maelstrom after saving all those people."

Just then, Emily came into the waiting area. "Well, the good news is that she's awake and doesn't appear to be injured."

"Is she fit for debriefing?" Rusty asked.

"I'd like to talk to you about her test results first," Emily said. She pulled out a folder with several notes and charts. "I spent some time talking with her to get her medical history. I have some concerns about what I've found in her blood work. There are a number of anomalous psychotropic compounds in her blood; trace amounts of Midazolam and Lorazepam, and a fairly substantial amount of Flurazepam."

"Um... can you translate that?" Rusty admitted sheepishly.

"All of those are highly experimental psychotropic compounds, rumored to be used by the military to suppress psionics. The first two compounds are what prevent the subject from using psi-powers, but they're also water-soluble and almost gone, which means she probably stopped using them a while ago. Flurazepam though is stored in the liver and is used to cap high-end psionic potential. In other words, it cuts a psychic's maximum power levels."

"You're kidding me..." Rusty said. "You're telling me that Angelina's still capped?"

"Angelina said that she was taking those drugs all her life, but that when she started to hit puberty, the people running her life started increasing her dosages every couple of years. Judging from what she told me, someone must have thought it was a bright idea to keep her dosed on those drugs for years as she was growing up."

"Garner..." Eddie muttered coldly.

"Rusty, did you ever boil a pot of water, and then try putting a sealed cap on top? Those drugs are fine for short-term usage, but whoever was running this secret program Angelina talks about didn't consider the long-term ramifications. To make matters worse, all that power without any training has put tremendous psychological and physiological stress on her mind. To compensate, her brain releases Beta-endorphin and Dynorphin whenever she uses her powers. That's why she feels really good whenever she hypnotizes people or manipulates matter."

"Like how good?" Rusty asked.

Emily shook her head. "Probably ten times stronger than cocaine. When she tries not using her powers, she's bombarded by thoughts and images all around her. Using her powers is like a warm soothing blanket around her mind."

"Jesus..." Nicole whispered.

"Is there a way to help her balance out?" Rusty asked.

Emily sighed. "She really needs to see an endocrinologist or a psychopharmacologist. This goes way beyond what a general practitioner can do."

Rusty nodded. "I'll see what I can do."

"Is it really true that she can actually directly control molecules?" Emily asked.

"She mind-linked with me to help me navigate through the black cloud," Rusty said. "I saw how she can sense atoms, so I would say yes."

"I would love to put her in front of a cancer patient. She could probably be a tremendously effective surgeon."

Rusty smirked. "She makes $6 per hour at BurgerMart. Maybe you could hire her."

"What?" Nicole asked. "So now you're making jokes?"

"I'm just saying that she needs help. She's not some psychopath we're dealing with. Given what she had to endure growing up, she seems amazingly stable."

"And how long is she going to stay stable?" Nicole stared at Rusty. "You don't listen, and you never listen. She's dangerous and needs to be contained. I was in her mind. She's just a kid. I remember when I was growing up with my limited telepathic abilities. She's already hundreds of times more powerful than I was at her age. If her powers progress the same way mine did, there'll be no stopping her. Then you throw in the psychotropic addiction. It won't be long before she starts craving to use her powers more and more and at some point, she might not care who she uses them on."

Rusty nodded. "So what do you propose? Go in there? Knock her out? She can read minds like reading a book. Do you think she would allow you to just drug her? What makes you think it's the right thing to do?"

Eddie interrupted, "I can see why Garner wants her, and that's a good enough reason to keep her out of his hands. Although I think both of you have good points, I have to agree with Rusty; I don't think she can be contained unless she wants to."

Nicole turned and walked down the hall. "Fine, fine, do what you want. But if you need me to help keep her distracted, you know where to find me."

Eddie watched her go. "You trust her?" he asked.

"I think so, but I want to hear what she has to say before making a choice. I want to give her the same choices I gave you and Nicole."

"You think that's wise?" Eddie asked.

"Dealing with a telepath, honesty is the best policy. I could walk in there and get blasted and leave only my socks behind," Rusty deadpanned.

Eddie just glared at him.

---

Rusty came into the room as Angelina watched the television mounted in the patient area. "Hey, are you feeling better?"

"You mean before or after I helped Maelstrom blow up half the city?" Angelina said with half-hearted sarcasm.

"I'm going to take care of that," Rusty promised. "I just came in here to ask you what you wanted the world to know about your alter-ego."

Angelina paused, and then gave a half-smile. "You're going to make me miss my book report, you know."

Rusty almost chuckled. "Which book?"

"'The Importance of Being Earnest' by Oscar Wilde."

"Well, that should come easy enough for you. Double-identities are part of this profession."

"Hmm... yeah... double identities..."

Rusty sighed. "What's really bothering you?"

Angelina looked down and trembled. "I just... I can't help but wonder if I did the right thing. I... helped kill someone today. I mean, I know he was hurting a lot of people and that he needed to be stopped, but..." She shook her head. "God, I must sound like a stupid little kid..."

:"No, I don't think you sound stupid." Rusty spoke with a carefully measured voice. "I didn't kill him out of malice. Or hate. Or any other reason that he was hurting others for and didn't care. Was it the right thing to do? I can't answer that. I hope it was. I would imagine that a number of people who are alive today because of our actions think so. Does it bother me? Yeah it does, and I suppose when it stops bothering me...I hope that never happens."

Angelina sighed. "I don't know. Maybe I'm not cut out for this business. I don't think I'm strong enough to make those kinds of hard choices."

"Unfortunately, you may have to make those choices. Don't underestimate Garner and the people he works for. They are still chasing Eddie. It's only because they know the rest of us have his back they haven't tried recently to bring him back. It's not from lack of trying."

"What else can I do? I can't just stop living my life because some power-mad general's out there."

"Remember what I told you earlier today? About being dangerous?" Rusty sighed. "I can't keep you here against your will. I'm also not your father, but you are dangerous. I think you're starting to understand how dangerous you can be if pushed. I'd like to say we could help you. I think we can but there are problems. You would need to trust us. It would also mean you would have to leave behind what's left of your current life. I can't and won't make this choice for you. I won't lie and say you wouldn't be a valuable member of the team if you wanted to be. Everyone must make their own choices."

"I...I don't want to give up my life. I mean, don't get me wrong. I appreciate everything you're doing for me. But if I have to run away and hide, then it's like they've won. The life I have isn't much, but it's all I have. It sounds corny, I know."

Rusty nodded. "If you change your mind, get in touch with Emily or call my office in Rhode Island. For starters, I'll see if I can find a specialist for your medical problems that I'm sure you overheard us talking about outside."

Angelina blushed. "I was wondering about what was causing those weird feelings."

"It may take me some time to find a solution, but I promise I'll do my best. For starters, I would like you to take one of our cell phones and keep it with you. It's got a built-in scrambler, so no one can listen in. Just be careful; if you aren't using this specific phone, assume that someone else is listening in."

---

The sounds of construction had not yet started downtown, but preparations had begun. Repair crews had marked off affected street lanes as heavy equipment was being prepared. On the roads, drivers complained at the increased congestion while pedestrians pointed at the wreckage and spoke among themselves.

Under the streets, the sounds of the sewers could be heard as the foul odor drifted up and mingled with the smells of the city. The rats scurried away from the unfamiliar sounds from above. Unnoticed among the refuse and rubble, a clay idol laid in the corner. Inside the idol, a dark crystal could be seen through the cracks. It pulsed with a black light. And waited...

---

The helicopters made it back to the Farm first, followed shortly by the convoy of trucks. There was the vague sense of dissatisfaction among the troops, but also a palpable sense of relief. No one liked running away from a fight like a whipped dog, but the thought of firing on innocent civilians would have made more than a few men question their loyalties to their superiors.

Raintree came out to meet the first column of trucks. General Garner stepped out first with a scowl still on his face. "We had her! We were this close to getting her back!"

Raintree clicked his tongue. "The media being there would have made it a messy operation General."

Garner and Raintree walked briskly into the main building as the soldiers headed back towards their respective offices. Garner entered the main surveillance room and looked at the personnel scurried around. "Where is she now?"

Raintree pointed to one of the monitors. "We tracked the Dark Savior's aircraft to the outskirts of Chicago. There are a number of commercial buildings where they disembarked. Chances are, they have a clinic or meeting area set up in town already."

"Our intel says the Dark Saviors may have safe houses set up in several locations across the nation already," Garner confirmed.

"Sir," one of the technicians reported, "we have another set of helicopters coming in. Call sign Tango-Foxtrot-Eagle-One."

"Eagle-One?" Raintree asked.

"I don't intend to be caught unprepared again Mr. Raintree. It's time we brought in some specialists," Garner explained as he and Raintree headed to the outdoor landing pad.

Outside, the Blackhawk helicopter came to a landing with the rotors still in motion. Three uniformed officers came off; Raintree immediately noted the combat decorations on each man's uniform.

"Mr. Raintree, let me introduce you to Colonel Joel Scott, Lieutenant Colonel Peter Mitchell and Master Sergeant Fred Fredrickson.

"From the Sahara incident. The Gods of Egypt invasion, right?" Raintree asked as he took each man's hand. "I heard good things about what your team accomplished."

"After Egypt, the Pentagon decided that a more organized response was required," Garner explained. "Colonel Scott was the man who helped write the military's battle plans for meta-human counter response."

"What about Posse Comitatus?" Raintree asked.

"In light of recent events, the United States Attorney General has requested that SecDef provide emergency assistance in this matter," Scott explained as he handed over a set of signed notarized orders. "The AG's office has determined that a Class 1 metahuman threat falls under the same classification as a Nuclear or Radiological weapon. Task Force Echo's mission is to provide whatever means necessary to neutralize this threat."

Raintree smiled. "Excellent..."


End file.
